
HLEDGER(1)                   hledger User Manuals                   HLEDGER(1)



NAME
       This  is  the  command-line  interface (CLI) for the hledger accounting
       tool.  Here we also describe hledger's concepts and file formats.  This
       manual is for hledger 1.26.99.

SYNOPSIS
       hledger

       hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTIONS] [ARGS]

       hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTIONS] [ARGS]

DESCRIPTION
       hledger  is  a  reliable,  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).

       The basic function of the hledger CLI is to  read  a  plain  text  file
       describing financial transactions (in accounting terms, a general jour-
       nal) and print useful reports on standard output,  or  export  them  as
       CSV.   hledger can also read some other file formats such as CSV files,
       translating them to journal format.  Additionally, hledger lists  other
       hledger-*  executables found in the user's $PATH and can invoke them as
       subcommands.

       hledger reads data from one or more files  in  hledger  journal,  time-
       clock,  timedot,  or  CSV format specified with -f, or $LEDGER_FILE, or
       $HOME/.hledger.journal          (on          windows,           perhaps
       C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal).  If using $LEDGER_FILE, note this must
       be a real environment variable, not a shell variable.  You can  specify
       standard input with -f-.

       Transactions  are  dated movements of money between two (or more) named
       accounts, and are recorded with journal entries like this:

              2015/10/16 bought food
               expenses:food          $10
               assets:cash

       Most users use a text editor to edit the journal, usually with an  edi-
       tor mode such as ledger-mode for added convenience.  hledger's interac-
       tive add command is another way to record  new  transactions.   hledger
       never changes existing transactions.

       To  get  started,  you  can  either save some entries like the above in
       ~/.hledger.journal, or run hledger add and follow  the  prompts.   Then
       try  some  commands like hledger print or hledger balance.  Run hledger
       with no arguments for a list of commands.

OPTIONS
   General options
       To see general usage help, including general  options  which  are  sup-
       ported by most hledger commands, run hledger -h.

       General help options:

       -h --help
              show general or COMMAND help

       --man  show general or COMMAND user manual with man

       --info show general or COMMAND user manual with info

       --version
              show general or ADDONCMD version

       --debug[=N]
              show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1)

       General input options:

       -f FILE --file=FILE
              use  a  different  input  file.   For  stdin,  use  -  (default:
              $LEDGER_FILE or $HOME/.hledger.journal)

       --rules-file=RULESFILE
              Conversion  rules  file  to  use  when  reading  CSV   (default:
              FILE.rules)

       --separator=CHAR
              Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',')

       --alias=OLD=NEW
              rename accounts named OLD to NEW

       --anon anonymize accounts and payees

       --pivot FIELDNAME
              use some other field or tag for the account name

       -I --ignore-assertions
              disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance
              assignments)

       -s --strict
              do extra error checking (check  that  all  posted  accounts  are
              declared)

       General reporting options:

       -b --begin=DATE
              include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to
              preceding subperiod start when using a report interval)

       -e --end=DATE
              include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to fol-
              lowing subperiod end when using a report interval)

       -D --daily
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by day

       -W --weekly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by week

       -M --monthly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by month

       -Q --quarterly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter

       -Y --yearly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by year

       -p --period=PERIODEXP
              set  start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once
              using period expressions syntax

       --date2
              match the secondary date instead (see  command  help  for  other
              effects)

       --today=DATE
              override   today's  date  (affects  relative  smart  dates,  for
              tests/examples)

       -U --unmarked
              include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C)

       -P --pending
              include only pending postings/txns

       -C --cleared
              include only cleared postings/txns

       -R --real
              include only non-virtual postings

       -NUM --depth=NUM
              hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep

       -E --empty
              show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa  in
              hledger-ui/hledger-web)

       -B --cost
              convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time

       -V --market
              convert amounts to their market value in default valuation  com-
              modities

       -X --exchange=COMM
              convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM

       --value
              convert  amounts  to  cost  or  market value, more flexibly than
              -B/-V/-X

       --infer-market-prices
              use transaction prices (recorded with @  or  @@)  as  additional
              market prices, as if they were P directives

       --auto apply automated posting rules to modify transactions.

       --forecast
              generate  future  transactions  from periodic transaction rules,
              for the next 6 months or till report end date.   In  hledger-ui,
              also make ordinary future transactions visible.

       --commodity-style
              Override  the  commodity  style  in the output for the specified
              commodity.  For example 'EUR1.000,00'.

       --color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)
              Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color  codes  in  text
              output.   'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color-
              supporting terminal.  'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg  when
              piping  output  into  'less  -R'.   'never'  or  'no': never.  A
              NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this.

       --pretty[=WHEN]
              Show prettier output, e.g.  using  unicode  box-drawing  charac-
              ters.   Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always',
              'never' also work).  If you provide an  argument  you  must  use
              '=', e.g.  '--pretty=yes'.

       When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the
       last one takes precedence.

       Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments.

   Command options
       To see options for a  particular  command,  including  command-specific
       options, run: hledger COMMAND -h.

       Command-specific  options  must  be written after the command name, eg:
       hledger print -x.

       Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you  may  need  to  put  its
       options  after a double-hyphen, eg: hledger ui -- --watch.  Or, you can
       run the add-on executable directly: hledger-ui --watch.

   Command arguments
       Most hledger commands accept arguments after the  command  name,  which
       are often a query, filtering the data in some way.

       You  can  save  a  set of command line options/arguments in a file, and
       then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line  argument.   Eg:
       hledger  bal  @foo.args.   (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument
       that begins with a literal @, precede it with --, eg:  hledger  bal  --
       @ARG).

       Inside  the  argument file, each line should contain just one option or
       argument.  Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see
       a  confusing  error).  Between a flag and its argument, use = (or noth-
       ing).  Bad:

              assets depth:2
              -X USD

       Good:

              assets
              depth:2
              -X=USD

       For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting  than
       you would at the command prompt.  Bad:

              -X"$"

       Good:

              -X$

       See also: Save frequently used options.

   Special characters
   Single escaping (shell metacharacters)
       In  shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as
       spaces, <, >, (, ), |, $ and \ - should be "shell-escaped" if you  want
       hledger  to see them.  This is done by enclosing them in single or dou-
       ble quotes, or by writing a backslash before  them.   Eg  to  match  an
       account name containing a space:

              $ hledger register 'credit card'

       or:

              $ hledger register credit\ card

       Windows  users  should  keep  in mind that cmd treats single quote as a
       regular character, so you should be using  double  quotes  exclusively.
       PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes.

   Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters)
       Characters  significant in regular expressions (described below) - such
       as ., ^, $, [, ], (, ), |, and \ - may need to  be  "regex-escaped"  if
       you  don't  want them to be interpreted by hledger's regular expression
       engine.  This is done by writing backslashes  before  them,  but  since
       backslash  is typically also a shell metacharacter, both shell-escaping
       and regex-escaping will be needed.  Eg to match a literal $ sign  while
       using the bash shell:

              $ hledger balance cur:'\$'

       or:

              $ hledger balance cur:\\$

   Triple escaping (for add-on commands)
       When  you  use  hledger  to  run  an external add-on command (described
       below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options  or  argu-
       ments  intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra level
       of shell-escaping.  Eg to match a literal $ sign while using  the  bash
       shell and running an add-on command (ui):

              $ hledger ui cur:'\\$'

       or:

              $ hledger ui cur:\\\\$

       If you wondered why four backslashes, perhaps this helps:


       unescaped:        $
       escaped:          \$
       double-escaped:   \\$
       triple-escaped:   \\\\$

       Or,  you  can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable
       directly:

              $ hledger-ui cur:\\$

   Less escaping
       Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell
       command  line,  where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should
       use one less level of escaping.  Those places include:

       o an @argumentfile

       o hledger-ui's filter field

       o hledger-web's search form

       o GHCI's prompt (used by developers).

   Unicode characters
       hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly:

       o they should be parsed correctly in input files  and  on  the  command
         line,  by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit
         forms, etc.)

       o they should be displayed correctly by  all  hledger  tools,  and  on-
         screen alignment should be preserved.

       This requires a well-configured environment.  Here are some tips:

       o A  system  locale  must  be  configured,  and it must be one that can
         decode the characters being used.  In bash, you can set a locale like
         this:  export LANG=en_US.UTF-8.  There are some more details in Trou-
         bleshooting.  This step is essential - without it, hledger will  quit
         on  encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled pro-
         grams).

       o your terminal software (eg  Terminal.app,  iTerm,  CMD.exe,  xterm..)
         must support unicode

       o the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode
         glyphs

       o the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as  dou-
         ble width (for report alignment)

       o on  Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind
         of environment in which it was built.  Eg hledger built in the  stan-
         dard  CMD.EXE  environment  (like  the binaries on our download page)
         might show display problems when run in a cygwin  or  msys  terminal,
         and vice versa.  (See eg #961).

   Regular expressions
       hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places:

       o query  terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form:
         REGEX, desc:REGEX, cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX

       o CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ...

       o account alias directives and options: 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:

       o In the alias directive and --alias option, regular  expressions  must
         be  enclosed  in  forward  slashes  (/REGEX/).  Elsewhere in hledger,
         these are not required.

       o In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like $  as  a
         literal  character,  prepend  a  backslash.  Eg to search for amounts
         with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write cur:\$.

       o On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special  mean-
         ing to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more.  See Spe-
         cial characters.

ENVIRONMENT
       LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f.

       On unix computers, the default value is: ~/.hledger.journal.

       A more typical value is something  like  ~/finance/YYYY.journal,  where
       ~/finance  is  a  version-controlled  finance directory and YYYY is the
       current year.  Or, ~/finance/current.journal, where current.journal  is
       a symbolic link to YYYY.journal.

       The  usual  way  to  set this permanently is to add a command to one of
       your shell's startup files (eg ~/.profile):

              export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal`

       On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set  environment
       variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg,
       Emacs started from a dock icon): In ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, add an
       entry like:

              {
                "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal"
              }

       For this to take effect you might need to killall Dock, or reboot.

       On  Windows  computers,  the  default  value is probably C:\Users\YOUR-
       NAME\.hledger.journal.  You can change this by running a  command  like
       this  in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Adminis-
       trator, and if this persists across a reboot):

              > setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal"

       Or,  change   it   in   settings:   see   https://www.java.com/en/down-
       load/help/path.html.

       COLUMNS  The  screen  width used by the register command.  Default: the
       full terminal width.

       NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will  not  use
       ANSI  color  codes  in  terminal  output.   This  is  overriden  by the
       --color/--colour option.

DATA FILES
       hledger reads transactions from one or more data  files.   The  default
       data  file  is  $HOME/.hledger.journal  (or  on Windows, something like
       C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal).

       You can override this with the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable:

              $ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal
              $ hledger stats

       or with one or more -f/--file options:

              $ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats

       The file name - means standard input:

              $ cat some.journal | hledger -f-

   Data formats
       Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be  in
       any of the supported file formats, which currently are:


       Reader:    Reads:                                    Used  for  file  exten-
                                                            sions:
       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
       journal    hledger journal files and  some  Ledger   .journal   .j  .hledger
                  journals, for transactions                .ledger
       time-      timeclock  files, for precise time log-   .timeclock
       clock      ging
       timedot    timedot  files,  for  approximate  time   .timedot
                  logging

       csv        comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated       .csv .ssv .tsv
                  values, for data import

       These formats are described in their own sections, below.

       hledger detects the format automatically based on the  file  extensions
       shown  above.   If  it  can't  recognise the file extension, it assumes
       journal format.  So for non-journal files,  it's  important  to  use  a
       recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show
       relevant error messages.

       You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file  path
       with the format and a colon.  Eg, to read a .dat file as csv format:

              $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats

       Or to read stdin (-) as timeclock format:

              $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:-

   Multiple files
       You  can specify multiple -f options, to read multiple files as one big
       journal.  There are some limitations with this:

       o most directives do not affect sibling files

       o balance assertions will not see any account  balances  from  previous
         files

       If you need either of those things, you can

       o use a single parent file which includes the others

       o or  concatenate  the files into one before reading, eg: cat a.journal
         b.journal | hledger -f- CMD.

   Strict mode
       hledger checks input files for valid data.  By default, the most impor-
       tant  errors  are  detected,  while  still accepting easy journal files
       without a lot of declarations:

       o Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ?

       o Are all transactions balanced ?

       o Do all balance assertions pass ?

       With the -s/--strict flag, additional checks are performed:

       o Are all accounts posted to, declared  with  an  account  directive  ?
         (Account error checking)

       o Are all commodities declared with a commodity directive ?  (Commodity
         error checking)

       o Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ?

       You can use the check command to run  individual  checks  --  the  ones
       listed above and some more.

TIME PERIODS
   Smart dates
       hledger's user interfaces accept a flexible "smart date" syntax.  Smart
       dates allow some english words, can be relative to  today's  date,  and
       can have less-significant date parts omitted (defaulting to 1).

       Examples:


       2004/10/1,   2004-01-01,   exact date, several separators allowed.   Year
       2004.9.1                   is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31
       2004                       start of year
       2004/10                    start of month
       10/1                       month and day in current year
       21                         day in current month
       october, oct               start of month in current year
       yesterday, today, tomor-   -1, 0, 1 days from today
       row
       last/this/next             -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period
       day/week/month/quar-
       ter/year
       in                     n   n periods from the current period
       days/weeks/months/quar-
       ters/years
       n                          n periods from the current period
       days/weeks/months/quar-
       ters/years ahead
       n                          -n periods from the current period
       days/weeks/months/quar-
       ters/years ago
       20181201                   8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day
       201812                     6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month

       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

       Note "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; those are not affected by --today.)


   Report start & end date
       By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time repre-
       sented by the journal data.  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.

       Some notes:

       o End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write  the  date
         after the last day you want to see in the report.

       o As  noted  in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with
         options, the last (i.e.  right-most) option takes precedence.

       o The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of  the
         start/end  dates  from options and that from date: queries.  That is,
         date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to  2030'  yields  January  2019,  the
         smallest common time span.

       o A  report  interval  (see  below)  will  adjust start/end dates, when
         needed, so that they fall on subperiod boundaries.

       Examples:


       -b 2016/3/17       begin on St. Patrick's day 2016
       -e 12/1            end  at  the  start  of  december  1st of the current year
                          (11/30 will be the last date included)
       -b thismonth       all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month
       -p thismonth       all transactions in the current month
       date:2016/3/17..   the  above  written  as  queries  instead  (.. can also be
                          replaced with -)
       date:..12/1
       date:thismonth..
       date:thismonth

   Report intervals
       A report interval can be specified so that commands like register, bal-
       ance and activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a sep-
       arate row or column.

       The following "standard" report intervals can be enabled by using their
       corresponding flag:

       o -D/--daily

       o -W/--weekly

       o -M/--monthly

       o -Q/--quarterly

       o -Y/--yearly

       These standard intervals always start on natural  interval  boundaries:
       eg  --weekly  starts  on  mondays, --monthly starts on the first of the
       month, --yearly always starts on January 1st, etc.

       Certain more complex intervals, and more flexible boundary  dates,  can
       be  specified  by  -p/--period.   These are described in period expres-
       sions, below.

       Report intervals can only be specified by the flags above, and  not  by
       query arguments, currently.

       Report  intervals  have another effect: multi-period reports are always
       expanded to fill a whole number of subperiods.  So if you use a  report
       interval  (other  than  --daily), and you have specified a start or end
       date, you may notice those  dates  being  overridden  (ie,  the  report
       starts  earlier than your requested start date, or ends later than your
       requested end date).  This is done to ensure "full" first and last sub-
       periods, so that all subperiods' numbers are comparable.

       To summarise:

       o In  multiperiod  reports,  all  subperiods  are forced to be the same
         length, to simplify reporting.

       o Reports  with  the  standard  --weekly/--monthly/--quarterly/--yearly
         intervals   are   required   to   start   on   the  first  day  of  a
         week/month/quarter/year.  We'd like  more  flexibility  here  but  it
         isn't supported yet.

       o --period  (below) can specify more complex intervals, starting on any
         date.

   Period expressions
       The -p/--period option accepts period expressions, a shorthand  way  of
       expressing  a start date, end date, and/or report interval all at once.

       Here's a basic period expression specifying the first quarter of  2009.
       Note,  hledger  always treats start dates as inclusive and end dates as
       exclusive:


       -p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"

       Keywords like "from" and "to" are optional, and so are the  spaces,  as
       long  as you don't run two dates together.  "to" can also be written as
       ".." or "-".  These 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,  the  above  can
       also be written as:


       -p "1/1 4/1"
       -p "january-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 in your journal:


       -p "from 2009/1/1"   everything  after  january
                            1, 2009
       -p "from 2009/1"     the same
       -p "from 2009"       the same
       -p "to 2009"         everything  before january
                            1, 2009

       A single date with no "from" or "to" defines both  the  start  and  end
       date like so:


       -p "2009"       the  year 2009; equivalent
                       to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1"
       -p "2009/1"     the month of jan;  equiva-
                       lent   to   "2009/1/1   to
                       2009/2/1"
       -p "2009/1/1"   just that day;  equivalent
                       to "2009/1/1 to 2009/1/2"

       Or you can specify a single quarter like so:


       -p "2009Q1"   first   quarter  of  2009,
                     equivalent to "2009/1/1 to
                     2009/4/1"
       -p "q4"       fourth quarter of the cur-
                     rent year

   Period expressions with a report interval
       -p/--period's argument can also begin with, or entirely consist  of,  a
       report interval.  This should be separated from the start/end dates (if
       any) by a space, or the word in.  The basic intervals (which  can  also
       be  written  as  command  line flags) are daily, weekly, monthly, quar-
       terly, and yearly.  Some examples:


       -p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
       -p "monthly in 2008"
       -p "quarterly"

       As mentioned above, the weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly intervals
       require  a  report  start  date that is the first day of a week, month,
       quarter or year.  And, report  start/end  dates  will  be  expanded  if
       needed to span a whole number of intervals.

       For example:


       -p  "weekly from 2009/1/1   starts on 2008/12/29, closest preceding Mon-
       to 2009/4/1"                day
       -p       "monthly      in   starts on 2018/11/01
       2008/11/25"
       -p    "quarterly     from   starts on 2009/04/01,  ends  on  2009/06/30,
       2009-05-05 to 2009-06-01"   which are first and last days of Q2 2009
       -p      "yearly      from   starts on 2009/01/01, first day of 2009
       2009-12-29"

   More complex report intervals
       Some more complex kinds  of  interval  are  also  supported  in  period
       expressions:

       o biweekly

       o fortnightly

       o bimonthly

       o every day|week|month|quarter|year

       o every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years

       These  too will cause report start/end dates to be expanded, if needed,
       to span a whole number of intervals.  Examples:


       -p "bimonthly from 2008"     periods will have boundaries on  2008/01/01,
                                    2008/03/01, ...
       -p "every 2 weeks"           starts on closest preceding Monday
       -p  "every  5  months from   periods will have boundaries on  2009/03/01,
       2009/03"                     2009/08/01, ...

   Intervals with custom start date
       All  intervals  mentioned  above are required to start on their natural
       calendar boundaries, but the following intervals can start on any date:

       Weekly on custom day:

       o every  Nth  day of week (th, nd, rd, or st are all accepted after the
         number)

       o every WEEKDAYNAME (full or three-letter english  weekday  name,  case
         insensitive)

       Monthly on custom day:

       o every Nth day [of month]

       o every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month]

       Yearly on custom day:

       o every MM/DD [of year] (month number and day of month number)

       o every  MONTHNAME  DDth  [of year] (full or three-letter english month
         name, case insensitive, and day of month number)

       o every DDth MONTHNAME [of year] (equivalent to the above)

       Examples:




       -p  "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"

   Periods or dates ?
       Report intervals like the above are most often used  with  -p|--period,
       to  divide reports into multiple subperiods - each generated date marks
       a subperiod boundary.  Here, the periods between the dates  are  what's
       important.

       But  report  intervals  can  also  be  used with --forecast to generate
       future transactions, or with balance --budget to generate budget  goal-
       setting  transactions.   For  these, the dates themselves are what mat-
       ters.

   Events on multiple weekdays
       The every WEEKDAYNAME form has a  special  variant  with  multiple  day
       names,  comma-separated.   Eg:  every  mon,thu,sat.   Also, weekday and
       weekendday are shorthand for mon,tue,wed,thu,fri  and  sat,sun  respec-
       tively.

       This form is mainly intended for use with --forecast, to generate peri-
       odic transactions on arbitrary days of the week.  It may be less useful
       with  -p, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal length.
       (Because gaps between periods are not allowed; if you'd like to  change
       this, see #1632.)

       Examples:


       -p          "every   dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods  will  be  Mon-
       mon,wed,fri"         Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun
       -p "every weekday"   dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods  will
                            be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun
       -p "every weekend-   dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri
       day"

DEPTH
       With  the --depth NUM option (short form: -NUM), commands like account,
       balance and register will show  only  the  uppermost  accounts  in  the
       account tree, down to level NUM.  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.

QUERIES
       One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise
       subset of your data.  Most hledger commands accept optional query argu-
       ments to restrict their scope.  The syntax is as follows:

       o Zero  or  more  space-separated  query  terms.   These are most often
         account name substrings:

         utilities food:groceries

       o Terms with spaces or other special characters should be  enclosed  in
         quotes:

         "personal care"

       o Regular expressions are also supported:

         "^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)"

       o Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data:

         date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status:

       o Add a not: prefix to negate a term:

         not:cur:USD

   Query types
       Here are the types of query term available.  Remember these can also be
       prefixed with not: to convert them into a negative match.

       acct:REGEX, REGEX
       Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular  expres-
       sion.  This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and reg-
       ular expression syntax is typically not  needed,  so  usually  we  just
       write an account name substring, like expenses or food.

       amt:N, amt:<N, amt:<=N, amt:>N, amt:>=N
       Match  postings  with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or
       greater than N.  (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not  tested
       and  will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded
       by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared.   Oth-
       erwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign.

       code:REGEX
       Match by transaction code (eg check number).

       cur:REGEX
       Match  postings  or  transactions  including  any  amounts  whose  cur-
       rency/commodity symbol is fully  matched  by  REGEX.   (For  a  partial
       match,  use  .*REGEX.*).   Note,  to match special characters which are
       regex-significant, you need to escape them with \.  And for  characters
       which  are  significant  to  your  shell you may need one more level of
       escaping.  So eg to match the dollar sign:
       hledger print cur:\\$.

       desc:REGEX
       Match transaction descriptions.

       date:PERIODEXPR
       Match dates (or with the --date2  flag,  secondary  dates)  within  the
       specified  period.   PERIODEXPR  is  a period expression with no report
       interval.  Examples:
       date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2/1-2/15, date:2021-07-27..nextquarter.

       date2:PERIODEXPR
       Match  secondary  dates within the specified period (independent of the
       --date2 flag).

       depth:N
       Match (or display, depending on command)  accounts  at  or  above  this
       depth.

       note:REGEX
       Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of |, or the
       whole description if there's no |).

       payee:REGEX
       Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the  description  left
       of |, or the whole description if there's no |).

       real:, real:0
       Match real or virtual postings respectively.

       status:, status:!, status:*
       Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively.

       type:TYPECODES
       Match  by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types).  TYPE-
       CODES is one or more of the single-letter account type  codes  ALERXCV,
       case insensitive.  Note type:A and type:E will also match their respec-
       tive subtypes C (Cash) and V (Conversion).  Certain  kinds  of  account
       alias  can  disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts > Aliases and
       account types.

       tag:REGEX[=REGEX]
       Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value.  (To match only by
       value, use tag:.=REGEX.)

       When querying by tag, note that:

       o Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts

       o Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction

       o Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings.

       (inacct:ACCTNAME
       A special query term used  automatically  in  hledger-web  only:  tells
       hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.)

   Combining query terms
       Most commands select things which match:

       o any of the description terms AND

       o any of the account terms AND

       o any of the status terms AND

       o all the other terms.

       while the print command shows transactions which:

       o match any of the description terms AND

       o have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND

       o have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND

       o match all the other terms.

       You  can  do  more powerful queries (such as AND-ing two like terms) by
       running a first query with print, and piping the result into  a  second
       hledger command.  Eg: how much of food expenses was paid with cash ?

              $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I balance expenses:food

       If  you  are  interested  in  full boolean expressions for queries, see
       #203.

   Queries and command options
       Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: depth:2  is
       equivalent to --depth 2, date:2020 is equivalent to -p 2020, etc.  When
       you mix command options and query arguments,  generally  the  resulting
       query is their intersection.

   Queries and account aliases
       When  account  names  are  rewritten  with --alias or alias, acct: will
       match either the old or the new account name.

   Queries and valuation
       When amounts are converted  to  other  commodities  in  cost  or  value
       reports,  cur:  and  amt:  match  the  old commodity symbol and the old
       amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where  it's
       reversed, see #1625).

   Querying with account aliases
       When account names are rewritten with --alias or alias, note that acct:
       will match either the old or the new account name.

   Querying with cost or value
       When amounts are converted  to  other  commodities  in  cost  or  value
       reports,  note  that cur: matches the new commodity symbol, and not the
       old one, and amt: matches the new quantity, and not the old one.  Note:
       this  changed  in  hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see the
       discussion at #1625.

CONVERSION & COST
       This section is about converting  between  commodities.   Some  defini-
       tions:

       o A  "commodity conversion" is an exchange of one currency or commodity
         for another.  Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase  or  sale
         of stock or cryptocurrency.

       o A  "conversion  transaction"  is  a transaction involving one or more
         such conversions.

       o "Conversion rate" is the exchange rate in a conversion - the cost per
         unit of one commodity in the other.

       o "Cost"  is  how  much  of one commodity was paid to acquire the other
         (when buying), or how much was received in  exchange  for  the  other
         (when  selling).  We call both of these "cost" for convenience (after
         all, it is cost for one party or the other).

   Recording conversions
       As a concrete example, let's assume 100 EUR was converted to  120  USD.
       There  are  several  ways to record this in the journal, each with pros
       and cons which will be explained in more detail  below.   (Also,  these
       examples  use  journal  format which is properly explained much further
       below; sorry about that, you may want to read some of that first.)

   Implicit conversion
       You can just record the outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD)  in  the
       appropriate asset account:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash    -100 EUR
                  assets:cash     120 USD

       hledger  will  assume  this transaction is balanced, inferring that the
       conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD.  You  can  see  the  inferred
       rate by using hledger print -x.

       Pro:

       o Easy, concise

       o hledger can do cost reporting

       Con:

       o Less  error  checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not
         be detected

       o conversion rate is not clear

       o disturbs the accounting equation

       You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped  com-
       modity  symbol,  by  using  hledger check commodities.  You can prevent
       implicit conversions entirely, by using hledger  check  balancednoauto-
       conversion, or -s/--strict.

   Priced conversion
       You can add the conversion rate using @ notation:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash        -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD
                  assets:cash         120 USD

       Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an error
       otherwise.

       Pro:

       o Still concise

       o makes the conversion rate clear

       o provides some error checking

       o hledger can do cost reporting

       Con:

       o Disturbs the accounting equation without the --infer-equity flag

   Equity conversion
       In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is  not  bal-
       anced  in  EUR  or  in  USD,  since  some  EUR disappears, and some USD
       appears.  This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents
       reports like balancesheetequity from showing a zero total.

       The  proper  way  to  make it balance is to add a balancing posting for
       each commodity, using an equity account:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash        -100 EUR
                  equity:conversion   100 EUR
                  equity:conversion  -120 USD
                  assets:cash         120 USD

       Pro:

       o Preserves the accounting equation

       o keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place

       o works in any double entry accounting system

       o hledger can convert this to transaction  prices  using  the  --infer-
         costs flag

       Con:

       o More verbose

       o conversion rate is not clear

       o depends on the order of postings

   Priced equity conversion
       Another  notation  is to record both the conversion rate and the equity
       postings:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash        -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD
                  equity:conversion   100 EUR
                  equity:conversion  -120 USD
                  assets:cash         120 USD

       Pro:

       o Preserves the accounting equation

       o keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place

       o makes the conversion rate clear

       o provides some error checking

       o hledger can do cost reporting

       Con:

       o Most verbose

       o Requires --infer-costs flag

       o Not compatible with ledger

   Inferring missing conversion rates
       hledger will do this automatically for implicit conversions.  Currently
       it can not do this for equity conversions.

   Inferring missing equity postings
       With  the  --infer-equity  flag,  hledger  will  add equity postings to
       priced and implicit conversions.

   Inferring missing transaction prices from equity postings
       With the --infer-costs flag, hledger will add transaction  prices  from
       equity  postings,  and  will  be  able to handle transaction prices and
       equity postings together.

   Cost reporting
       With the -B/--cost flag, hledger will convert the amounts in priced and
       implicit  conversions  to  their  cost in the other commodity.  This is
       useful to see a report of what you paid for things  (or  how  much  you
       sold  things for).  Currently -B/--cost does not work on equity conver-
       sions, and it disables --infer-equity.

       These operations are transient, only affecting reports.  If you want to
       change  the journal file permanently, you could pipe each entry through
       hledger -f- -I print [-x] [--infer-equity] [--infer-costs] [-B]

   Conversion summary
       o Recording the conversion rate is good because it makes that clear and
         allows cost reporting.

       o Recording  equity postings is good because it balances the accounting
         equation and is correct bookkeeping.

       o Combining these is possible with the --infer-costs flag, but has cer-
         tain requirements for the order of postings.

       o When  you  want  to  see  the  cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use
         -B/--cost.

       o When you want to see a balanced  balance  sheet  or  correct  journal
         entries, use --infer-equity.

       o --cost  will  remove any balancing equity posts, so as not to disturb
         the accounting equation.

       o Conversion/cost operations are performed before valuation.

VALUATION
       Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity,  hledger  can
       convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in
       the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on  a
       certain  date).   This  is  controlled  by the --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY]
       option, which will be described below.  We also provide the simpler  -V
       and -X COMMODITY options, and often one of these is all you need:

   -V: Value
       The  -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in their default
       valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation
       date(s), if any.  More on these in a minute.

   -X: Value in specified commodity
       The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V, except you tell it which cur-
       rency you want to convert to, and it tries  to  convert  everything  to
       that.

   Valuation date
       Since  market  prices  can change from day to day, market value reports
       have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market
       prices will be used.

       For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified,
       that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the  valuation  date
       is the journal's end date.

       For  multiperiod  reports, each column/period is valued on the last day
       of the period, by default.

   Market prices
       To convert a commodity A to its market value in  another  commodity  B,
       hledger  looks  for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows,
       in this order of preference :

       1. A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest  market
          price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P direc-
          tive, or (with the --infer-market-prices flag) inferred from  trans-
          action prices.

       2. A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market
          price from B to A.

       3. A forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed  by  com-
          bining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market prices,
          leading from A to B.

       4. Any chain of market prices: a chain of any market prices,  including
          both  forward  and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to
          B.

       There is a limit to the  length  of  these  price  chains;  if  hledger
       reaches  that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all
       possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave  up"  message  visible  in
       --debug=2 output).  That limit is currently 1000.

       Amounts  for  which no suitable market price can be found, are not con-
       verted.

   --infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions
       Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires,
       P directives in your journal.  Since adding and updating those can be a
       chore, and since transactions usually take place  at  close  to  market
       value, why not use the recorded transaction prices as additional market
       prices (as Ledger does) ?  We could produce value reports without need-
       ing P directives at all.

       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.  (And if
       both occur on the same day, the P directive takes precedence).

       There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in confus-
       ing/undesired  ways  by  your journal entries.  If this happens to you,
       read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding --debug or
       --debug=2 to troubleshoot.

       --infer-market-prices can infer market prices from:

       o multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@)

       o multicommodity  transactions with implicit prices (no @, two commodi-
         ties, unbalanced).  (With  these,  the  order  of  postings  matters.
         hledger print -x can be useful for troubleshooting.)

       o but  not,  currently, from "more correct" multicommodity transactions
         (no @, multiple commodities, balanced).

       There is another 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  con-
       version  might  not  happen because no valuation commodity was detected
       (--debug=2 will show this).  To be safe, specify the valuation commmod-
       ity, eg:

       o -X EUR --infer-market-prices, not -V --infer-market-prices

       o --value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices, not --value=then --infer-mar-
         ket-prices

   Valuation commodity
       When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM):
       hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a  suit-
       able market price (including by reversing or chaining prices).

       When  you  leave  the  valuation  commodity  unspecified (-V or --value
       TYPE):
       For each commodity A, hledger picks a default  valuation  commodity  as
       follows, in this order of preference:

       1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on
          or before valuation date.

       2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on
          any  date.   (Allows  conversion  to proceed when there are inferred
          prices before the valuation date.)

       3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and  the
          --infer-market-prices  flag  is  used:  the price commodity from the
          latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date.

       This means:

       o If  you  have  P directives, they determine which commodities -V will
         convert, and to what.

       o If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-market-prices  flag,
         transaction prices determine it.

       Amounts  for  which  no  valuation  commodity can be found are not con-
       verted.

   Simple valuation examples
       Here are some quick examples of -V:

              ; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1
              P 2016/11/01 EUR $1.10

              ; purchase some euros on nov 3
              2016/11/3
                  assets:euros        EUR100
                  assets:checking

              ; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21
              P 2016/12/21 EUR $1.03

       How many euros do I have ?

              $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros
                              EUR100  assets:euros

       What are they worth at end of nov 3 ?

              $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4
                           $110.00  assets:euros

       What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ?  (no report end date  specified,
       defaults to today)

              $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V
                           $103.00  assets:euros

   --value: Flexible valuation
       -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option:

               --value=TYPE[,COMM]  TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD.
                                    COMM is an optional commodity symbol.
                                    Shows amounts converted to:
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s)
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date

       The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date:

       --value=then
              Convert  amounts to their value in the default valuation commod-
              ity, using market prices on each posting's date.

       --value=end
              Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation  commod-
              ity,  using  market  prices on the last day of the report period
              (or if unspecified, the journal's end date); or  in  multiperiod
              reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod.

       --value=now
              Convert  amounts to their value in the default valuation commod-
              ity using current market prices (as of  when  report  is  gener-
              ated).

       --value=YYYY-MM-DD
              Convert  amounts to their value in the default valuation commod-
              ity using market prices on this date.

       To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part:
       a  comma,  then  the  target  commodity's symbol.  Eg: --value=now,EUR.
       hledger will do its best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing
       market prices as described above.

   More valuation examples
       Here  are  some  examples  showing  the effect of --value, as seen with
       print:

              P 2000-01-01 A  1 B
              P 2000-02-01 A  2 B
              P 2000-03-01 A  3 B
              P 2000-04-01 A  4 B

              2000-01-01
                (a)      1 A @ 5 B

              2000-02-01
                (a)      1 A @ 6 B

              2000-03-01
                (a)      1 A @ 7 B

       Show the cost of each posting:

              $ hledger -f- print --cost
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             5 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             6 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             7 B

       Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29):

              $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             2 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             2 B

       With no report period specified, that shows the value as  of  the  last
       day of the journal (2000-03-01):

              $ hledger -f- print --value=end
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             3 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             3 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             3 B

       Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today):

              $ hledger -f- print --value=now
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             4 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             4 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             4 B

       Show the value on 2000/01/15:

              $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             1 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             1 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             1 B

       You may need to  explicitly  set  a  commodity's  display  style,  when
       reverse prices are used.  Eg this output might be surprising:

              P 2000-01-01 A 2B

              2000-01-01
                a  1B
                b

              $ hledger print -x -X A
              2000-01-01
                  a               0
                  b               0

       Explanation:  because there's no amount or commodity directive specify-
       ing a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows  no
       decimal digits.  Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the com-
       modity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either.  Adding  a  com-
       modity directive sets a more useful display style for A:

              P 2000-01-01 A 2B
              commodity 0.00A

              2000-01-01
                a  1B
                b

              $ hledger print -X A
              2000-01-01
                  a           0.50A
                  b          -0.50A

   Interaction of valuation and queries
       When  matching  postings based on queries in the presence of valuation,
       the following happens.

       1. The query is separated into two parts:

           1. the currency (cur:) or amount (amt:).

           2. all other parts.

       2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based on
          pre-valued amounts.

       3. Valuation is applied to the postings.

       4. The  postings  are  matched to the other parts of the query based on
          post-valued amounts.

       See: 1625

   Effect of valuation on reports
       Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect  each  part
       of  hledger's  reports  (and  a  glossary).  (It's wide, you'll have to
       scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting.  If  you  find
       problems,  please  report  them,  ideally  with a reproducible example.
       Related: #329, #1083.


       Report          -B, --cost     -V, -X         --value=then        --value=end    --value=DATE,
       type                                                                             --value=now
       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       print
       posting         cost           value     at   value at  posting   value     at   value      at
       amounts                        report   end   date                report    or   DATE/today
                                      or today                           journal end



       balance         unchanged      unchanged      unchanged           unchanged      unchanged
       asser-
       tions/assign-
       ments

       register
       starting bal-   cost           value     at   valued   at   day   value     at   value      at
       ance (-H)                      report    or   each   historical   report    or   DATE/today
                                      journal end    posting was made    journal end
       starting bal-   cost           value at day   valued   at   day   value at day   value      at
       ance     (-H)                  before         each   historical   before         DATE/today
       with   report                  report    or   posting was made    report    or
       interval                       journal                            journal
                                      start                              start
       posting         cost           value     at   value at  posting   value     at   value      at
       amounts                        report    or   date                report    or   DATE/today
                                      journal end                        journal end
       summary post-   summarised     value     at   sum  of  postings   value     at   value      at
       ing   amounts   cost           period ends    in interval, val-   period ends    DATE/today
       with   report                                 ued  at  interval
       interval                                      start
       running         sum/average    sum/average    sum/average    of   sum/average    sum/average
       total/average   of displayed   of displayed   displayed values    of displayed   of  displayed
                       values         values                             values         values

       balance  (bs,
       bse, cf, is)
       balance         sums      of   value     at   value at  posting   value     at   value      at
       changes         costs          report   end   date                report    or   DATE/today of
                                      or today  of                       journal  end   sums of post-
                                      sums      of                       of  sums  of   ings
                                      postings                           postings
       budget          like balance   like balance   like      balance   like    bal-   like  balance
       amounts         changes        changes        changes             ances          changes
       (--budget)
       grand total     sum  of dis-   sum  of dis-   sum  of displayed   sum of  dis-   sum  of  dis-
                       played  val-   played  val-   valued              played  val-   played values
                       ues            ues                                ues

       balance  (bs,
       bse,  cf, is)
       with   report
       interval
       starting bal-   sums      of   value     at   sums of values of   value     at   sums of post-
       ances (-H)      costs     of   report start   postings   before   report start   ings   before
                       postings       of  sums  of   report  start  at   of  sums  of   report start
                       before         all postings   respective  post-   all postings
                       report start   before         ing dates           before
                                      report start                       report start
       balance         sums      of   same      as   sums of values of   balance        value      at
       changes (bal,   costs     of   --value=end    postings       in   change    in   DATE/today of
       is,        bs   postings  in                  period at respec-   each period,   sums of post-
       --change,  cf   period                        tive      posting   valued    at   ings
       --change)                                     dates               period ends
       end  balances   sums      of   same      as   sums of values of   period   end   value      at
       (bal  -H,  is   costs     of   --value=end    postings     from   balances,      DATE/today of
       --H, bs, cf)    postings                      before     period   valued    at   sums of post-
                       from  before                  start  to  period   period ends    ings
                       report start                  end at respective
                       to    period                  posting dates
                       end
       budget          like balance   like balance   like      balance   like    bal-   like  balance
       amounts         changes/end    changes/end    changes/end  bal-   ances          changes/end
       (--budget)      balances       balances       ances                              balances
       row   totals,   sums,  aver-   sums,  aver-   sums, averages of   sums,  aver-   sums,   aver-
       row  averages   ages of dis-   ages of dis-   displayed values    ages of dis-   ages of  dis-
       (-T, -A)        played  val-   played  val-                       played  val-   played values
                       ues            ues                                ues


       column totals   sums of dis-   sums of dis-   sums of displayed   sums of dis-   sums of  dis-
                       played  val-   played  val-   values              played  val-   played values
                       ues            ues                                ues
       grand  total,   sum, average   sum, average   sum,  average  of   sum, average   sum,  average
       grand average   of    column   of    column   column totals       of    column   of     column
                       totals         totals                             totals         totals


       --cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like -H but with a zero
       starting balance.

       Glossary:

       cost   calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s).

       value  market value using available market price declarations,  or  the
              unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found.

       report start
              the  first  day  of the report period specified with -b or -p or
              date:, otherwise today.

       report or journal start
              the first day of the report period specified with -b  or  -p  or
              date:,  otherwise  the earliest transaction date in the journal,
              otherwise today.

       report end
              the last day of the report period specified with  -e  or  -p  or
              date:, otherwise today.

       report or journal end
              the  last  day  of  the report period specified with -e or -p or
              date:, otherwise the latest transaction  date  in  the  journal,
              otherwise today.

       report interval
              a  flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the
              report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperi-
              ods).

PIVOTING
       Normally hledger sums amounts, and organizes them in a hierarchy, based
       on account name.  The --pivot FIELD option causes it to sum  and  orga-
       nize  hierarchy  based on the value of some other field instead.  FIELD
       can be: status, code, description, payee, note, or the full name  (case
       insensitive)  of  any  tag.   As  with account names, values containing
       colon:separated:parts will be displayed hierarchically in reports.

       --pivot is a general option affecting all reports;  you  can  think  of
       hledger transforming the journal before any other processing, replacing
       every posting's account name with the value of the specified  field  on
       that posting, inheriting it from the transaction or using a blank value
       if it's not present.

       An example:

              2016/02/16 Member Fee Payment
                  assets:bank account                    2 EUR
                  income:member fees                    -2 EUR  ; member: John Doe

       Normal balance report showing account names:

              $ hledger balance
                             2 EUR  assets:bank account
                            -2 EUR  income:member fees
              --------------------
                                 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,
       described below):

              $ 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

OUTPUT
   Output destination
       hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default.  You can
       of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax:

              $ hledger print > foo.txt

       Some  commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also pro-
       vide the -o/--output-file option, which does  the  same  thing  without
       needing the shell.  Eg:

              $ hledger print -o foo.txt
              $ hledger print -o -        # write to stdout (the default)

       hledger   can   optionally   produce  debug  output  (if  enabled  with
       --debug=N); this goes to stderr, and is not  affected  by  -o/--output-
       file.   If you need to capture it, use shell redirects, eg: hledger bal
       --debug=3 >file 2>&1.

   Output styling
       hledger commands can produce colour output when the  terminal  supports
       it.   This  is  controlled  by  the  --color/--colour  option: - 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.

       hledger commands can also use unicode box-drawing characters to produce
       prettier tables and output.  This is controlled by the --pretty option:
       -  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.

   Output format
       Some  commands  offer  additional  output formats, other than the usual
       plain text terminal output.  Here are those commands  and  the  formats
       currently supported:


       -             txt   csv   html    json   sql
       ---------------------------------------------
       aregister     Y     Y             Y
       balance       Y 1   Y 1   Y 1,2   Y
       bal-          Y 1   Y 1   Y 1     Y
       ancesheet


       bal-          Y 1   Y 1   Y 1     Y
       ancesheete-
       quity
       cashflow      Y 1   Y 1   Y 1     Y
       incomes-      Y 1   Y 1   Y 1     Y
       tatement
       print         Y     Y             Y      Y
       register      Y     Y             Y

       o 1 Also affected by the balance commands' --layout option.

       o 2  balance  does not support html output without a report interval or
         with --budget.

       The output format is selected by the -O/--output-format=FMT option:

              $ hledger print -O csv    # print CSV on stdout

       or by the filename extension of  an  output  file  specified  with  the
       -o/--output-file=FILE.FMT option:

              $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv    # write CSV to foo.csv

       The  -O  option can be combined with -o to override the file extension,
       if needed:

              $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv    # write CSV to foo.txt

   CSV output
       o In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands  separators)  are
         disabled automatically.

   HTML output
       o HTML output can be styled by an optional hledger.css file in the same
         directory.

   JSON output
       o Not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome.

       o Our JSON is rather large and verbose, as it is quite a faithful  rep-
         resentation  of  hledger's  internal  data  types.  To understand the
         JSON,  read  the  Haskell  type  definitions,  which  are  mostly  in
         https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-
         lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs.

       o hledger represents quantities as Decimal values  storing  up  to  255
         significant  digits,  eg  for  repeating  decimals.  Such numbers can
         arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices),
         and  would break most JSON consumers.  So in JSON, we show quantities
         as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places.  We don't limit the
         number  of  integer  digits, but that part is under your control.  We
         hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if  you  find
         otherwise, please let us know.  (Cf #1195)

   SQL output
       o Not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome.

       o SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL

       o SQL  output  is structured with the expectations that statements will
         be executed in the empty database.  If you already have  tables  cre-
         ated  via  SQL  output  of hledger, you would probably want to either
         clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL statements)
         or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped.

   Commodity styles
       The  display style of a commodity/currency is inferred according to the
       rules described in Commodity display style.  The inferred display style
       can  be  overridden  by an optional -c/--commodity-style option (Excep-
       tions: as is the case for  inferred  styles,  price  amounts,  and  all
       amounts  displayed  by the print command, will be displayed with all of
       their decimal digits visible, regardless of the  specified  precision).
       For example, the following will override the display style for dollars.

              $ hledger print -c '$1.000,0'

       The format specification of the style is  identical  to  the  commodity
       display  style  specification for the commodity directive.  The command
       line option can be supplied repeatedly to override  the  display  style
       for multiple commodity/currency symbols.

COMMANDS
       hledger  provides a number of commands for producing reports and manag-
       ing your data.  Run hledger with no  arguments  to  list  the  commands
       available,  and hledger CMD to run a command.  CMD can be the full com-
       mand name, or its standard abbreviation shown in the commands list,  or
       any unambiguous prefix of the name.  Eg: hledger bal.

       Here are the built-in commands, with the most often-used in bold:

       Data entry:

       These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your jour-
       nal file.

       o add - add transactions using guided prompts

       o import - add any new transactions from other files (eg csv)

       Data management:

       o check - check for various kinds of issue in the data

       o close (equity) - generate balance-resetting transactions

       o diff - compare account transactions in two journal files

       o rewrite - generate extra postings, similar to print --auto

       Financial statements:

       o aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account

       o balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth

       o balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity

       o cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets

       o incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses

       o roi - show return on investments

       Miscellaneous reports:

       o accounts - show account names

       o activity - show postings-per-interval bar charts

       o balance (bal) - show  balance  changes/end  balances/budgets  in  any
         accounts

       o codes - show transaction codes

       o commodities - show commodity/currency symbols

       o descriptions - show unique transaction descriptions

       o files - show input file paths

       o help - show hledger user manuals in several formats

       o notes - show unique note segments of transaction descriptions

       o payees - show unique payee segments of transaction descriptions

       o prices - show market price records

       o print - show transactions (journal entries)

       o print-unique - show only transactions with unique descriptions

       o register  (reg)  -  show  postings  in one or more accounts & running
         total

       o register-match - show a recent posting that best matches  a  descrip-
         tion

       o stats - show journal statistics

       o tags - show tag names

       o test - run self tests


       Add-on commands:

       Programs  or  scripts  named  hledger-SOMETHING in your PATH are add-on
       commands; these appear in the commands list with a + mark.  The follow-
       ing add-on commands can be installed, eg by the hledger-install script:

       o ui - hledger's official curses-style TUI

       o web - hledger's official web UI

       o iadd - a popular alternative to hledger's add command.

       o interest - generates interest transactions

       o stockquotes - downloads market prices.  (Alpha  quality,  needs  your
         help.)

       Next, the detailed command docs, in alphabetical order.

   accounts
       accounts
       Show account names.

       This  command  lists account names, either declared with account direc-
       tives (--declared), posted to (--used), or both  (the  default).   With
       query  arguments,  only  matched account names and account names refer-
       enced by matched postings are shown.  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  com-
       ponents.   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.)

       Examples:

              $ hledger accounts
              assets:bank:checking
              assets:bank:saving
              assets:cash
              expenses:food
              expenses:supplies
              income:gifts
              income:salary
              liabilities:debts

   activity
       activity
       Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval.

       The  activity  command  displays an ascii histogram showing transaction
       counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day  is  the
       default).  With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions.

       Examples:

              $ hledger activity --quarterly
              2008-01-01 **
              2008-04-01 *******
              2008-07-01
              2008-10-01 **

   add
       add
       Prompt  for  transactions  and  add them to the journal.  Any arguments
       will be used as default inputs for the first N prompts.

       Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor,  or
       generate  them from CSV.  For more interactive data entry, there is the
       add command, which prompts interactively on the console for new  trans-
       actions,  and appends them to the main journal file (which should be in
       journal format).  Existing transactions are not changed.  This  is  one
       of  the  few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also
       import).

       To use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts.  You can add as
       many  transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press
       control-d or control-c to exit.

       Features:

       o add tries to provide useful defaults,  using  the  most  similar  (by
         description)  recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as a
         template.

       o You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments.

       o Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry.

       o The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, descrip-
         tions,  dates  (yesterday,  today,  tomorrow).   If the input area is
         empty, it will insert the default value.

       o If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added  to  any
         bare numbers entered.

       o A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date.

       o Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount.

       o If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward.

       o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when  the  terminal
         supports it.

       Example (see the tutorial for a detailed explanation):

              $ 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).

   aregister
       aregister, areg

       Show the transactions  and  running  historical  balance  of  a  single
       account, with each transaction displayed as one line.

       aregister shows the overall transactions affecting a particular account
       (and any subaccounts).  Each report line represents one transaction  in
       this  account.   Transactions  before  the report start date are always
       included in the running balance (--historical mode is always on).

       This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the  register  command
       (which  shows individual postings, possibly from multiple accounts, not
       necessarily in historical mode).  As a quick rule of thumb: - use areg-
       ister for reviewing and reconciling real-world asset/liability accounts
       - use register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses.

       aregister requires one argument: the account to  report  on.   You  can
       write  either  the  full  account  name,  or a case-insensitive regular
       expression which will select the alphabetically first matched  account.
       (Eg  if  you have assets:aaa:checking and assets:bbb:checking accounts,
       hledger areg checking would select assets:aaa:checking.)

       Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be  shown.
       aregister  ignores depth limits, so its final total will always match a
       balance report with similar arguments.

       Any additional arguments form a query which will  filter  the  transac-
       tions shown.  Note some queries will disturb the running balance, caus-
       ing it to be different from the account's real-world running balance.

       An example: this shows the transactions and historical running  balance
       during july, in the first account whose name contains "checking":

              $ hledger areg checking date:jul

       Each aregister line item shows:

       o the  transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if different,
         see below)

       o the names of all the other account(s) involved  in  this  transaction
         (probably abbreviated)

       o the total change to this account's balance from this transaction

       o the account's historical running balance after this transaction.

       Transactions  making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add
       the -E/--empty flag to show them.

       For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based  on  the  first
       1000  lines;  this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause
       visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted.  If you  want  to
       ensure  perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the
       --align-all flag.

       This command also supports the output  destination  and  output  format
       options.  The output formats supported are txt, csv, and json.

   aregister and custom posting dates
       Transactions  whose  date  is  outside  the  report period can still be
       shown, if they have a posting to this account dated inside  the  report
       period.   (And  in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This
       ensures that aregister can show an accurate historical running balance,
       matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments.

       To  filter  strictly  by  transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates
       flag.  If you use this flag and  some  of  your  postings  have  custom
       dates, it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong.

   balance
       balance, bal
       Show accounts and their balances.

       balance  is  one  of  hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for
       listing account balances, balance changes, values,  value  changes  and
       more, during one time period or many.  Generally it shows a table, with
       rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods.

       Note there are some higher-level variants of the balance  command  with
       convenient  defaults,  which  can be simpler to use: balancesheet, bal-
       ancesheetequity, cashflow and incomestatement.  When you need more con-
       trol, then use balance.

   balance features
       Here's  a quick overview of the balance command's features, followed by
       more detailed descriptions and examples.  Many of these work  with  the
       higher-level commands as well.

       balance can show..

       o accounts as a list (-l) or a tree (-t)

       o optionally depth-limited (-[1-9])

       o sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount

       ..and their..

       o balance changes (the default)

       o or actual and planned balance changes (--budget)

       o or value of balance changes (-V)

       o or change of balance values (--valuechange)

       o or unrealised capital gain/loss (--gain)

       ..in..

       o one time period (the whole journal period by default)

       o or multiple periods (-D, -W, -M, -Q, -Y, -p INTERVAL)

       ..either..

       o per period (the default)

       o or accumulated since report start date (--cumulative)

       o or accumulated since account creation (--historical/-H)

       ..possibly converted to..

       o cost (--value=cost[,COMM]/--cost/-B)

       o or market value, as of transaction dates (--value=then[,COMM])

       o or at period ends (--value=end[,COMM])

       o or now (--value=now)

       o or at some other date (--value=YYYY-MM-DD)

       ..with..

       o totals   (-T),   averages   (-A),  percentages  (-%),  inverted  sign
         (--invert)

       o rows and columns swapped (--transpose)

       o another field used as account name (--pivot)

       o custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) (--format)

       o commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines (--layout)

       This command supports the output destination and output format options,
       with  output  formats  txt, csv, json, and (multi-period reports only:)
       html.  In txt output in a colour-supporting terminal, negative  amounts
       are shown in red.

       The  --related/-r  flag  shows the balance of the other postings in the
       transactions of the postings which would normally be shown.

   Simple balance report
       With no arguments, balance shows a  list  of  all  accounts  and  their
       change  of  balance  - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and
       outflows - during the entire period of  the  journal.   For  real-world
       accounts,  this  should  also match their end balance at the end of the
       journal period (more on this below).

       Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any,  and  then  alphabeti-
       cally by account name.  For instance (using examples/sample.journal):

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal
                                $1  assets:bank:saving
                               $-2  assets:cash
                                $1  expenses:food
                                $1  expenses:supplies
                               $-1  income:gifts
                               $-1  income:salary
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                 0

       Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree mode
       - see below) are hidden  by  default.   Use  -E/--empty  to  show  them
       (revealing assets:bank:checking here):

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal  -E
                                 0  assets:bank:checking
                                $1  assets:bank:saving
                               $-2  assets:cash
                                $1  expenses:food
                                $1  expenses:supplies
                               $-1  income:gifts
                               $-1  income:salary
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                 0

       The  total  of  the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless
       -N/--no-total is used.

   Filtered balance report
       You can show fewer accounts,  a  different  time  period,  totals  from
       cleared transactions only, etc.  by using query arguments or options to
       limit the postings being matched.  Eg:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806
                               $-2  assets:cash
              --------------------
                               $-2

   List or tree mode
       By default, or with -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat  list  with
       their full names visible, as in the examples above.

       With  -t/--tree,  the  account  hierarchy  is  shown, with subaccounts'
       "leaf" names indented below their parent:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance
                               $-1  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-2    cash
                                $2  expenses
                                $1    food
                                $1    supplies
                               $-2  income
                               $-1    gifts
                               $-1    salary
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                 0

       Notes:

       o "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more compact
         output,  unless  --no-elide is used.  Boring accounts have no balance
         of their own and just one subaccount (eg assets:bank and  liabilities
         above).

       o All  balances  shown  are "inclusive", ie including the balances from
         all subaccounts.  Note this means  some  repetition  in  the  output,
         which requires explanation when sharing reports with non-plaintextac-
         counting-users.  A tree mode report's final total is the sum  of  the
         top-level balances shown, not of all the balances shown.

       o Each  group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is sorted
         separately.

   Depth limiting
       With a depth:NUM query, or --depth NUM option, or just  -NUM  (eg:  -3)
       balance  reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, hiding
       the deeper subaccounts.  This can be useful  for  getting  an  overview
       without too much detail.

       Account  balances  at  the depth limit always include the balances from
       any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode).  Eg, limiting to depth 1:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1
                               $-1  assets
                                $2  expenses
                               $-2  income
                                $1  liabilities
              --------------------
                                 0

   Dropping top-level accounts
       You can also hide one or  more  top-level  account  name  parts,  using
       --drop NUM.  This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level account
       names:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1
                                $1  food
                                $1  supplies
              --------------------
                                $2


   Multi-period balance report
       With  a  report  interval  (set   by   the   -D/--daily,   -W/--weekly,
       -M/--monthly,  -Q/--quarterly,  -Y/--yearly, or -p/--period flag), bal-
       ance shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive  time
       periods (and a title):

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E
              Balance changes in 2008:

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

       Notes:

       o The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to fully
         encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and last subpe-
         riods have the same duration as the others).

       o Leading  and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are not
         shown, unless -E/--empty is used.

       o Accounts  (rows)  containing  all  zeroes  are  not   shown,   unless
         -E/--empty is used.

       o Amounts  with  many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless
         --no-elide is used.  (experimental)

       o Average and/or total columns can be added with the  -A/--average  and
         -T/--row-total flags.

       o The --transpose flag can be used to exchange rows and columns.

       o The  --pivot  FIELD option causes a different transaction field to be
         used as "account name".  See PIVOTING.

       Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy viewing
       in the terminal.  Here are some ways to handle that:

       o Hide the totals row with -N/--no-total

       o Convert to a single currency with -V

       o Maximize the terminal window

       o Reduce the terminal's font size

       o View  with  a  pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less
         -RS

       o Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (hledger bal  -D  -O
         csv  |  vd  -f  csv),  Emacs'  csv-mode (M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a), or a
         spreadsheet (hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv)

       o Output as HTML and view with a browser: hledger bal -D -o  a.html  &&
         open a.html

   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.

   Data layout
       The  --layout option affects how multi-commodity amounts are displayed,
       and some other things, influencing the overall  layout  of  the  report
       data:

       o --layout=wide[,WIDTH]: commodities are shown on a single line, possi-
         bly elided to the specified width

       o --layout=tall: each commodity is shown on a separate line

       o --layout=bare: amounts are shown as bare numbers, with commodity sym-
         bols in a separate column

       o --layout=tidy: data is normalised to tidy form, with one row per data
         value.  We currently support this with  CSV  output  only.   In  tidy
         mode,  totals and row averages are disabled (-N/--no-total is implied
         and -T/--row-total and -A/--average will be ignored).

       These --layout modes are supported with some but not all of the  output
       formats:


       -      txt   csv   html   json   sql
       -------------------------------------
       wide   Y     Y     Y
       tall   Y     Y     Y
       bare   Y     Y     Y
       tidy         Y

       Examples:

       o Wide layout.  With many commodities, reports can be very wide:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  ||                                          2012                                                     2013                                             2014                                                      Total
                ==================++====================================================================================================================================================================================================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT  -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT
                ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT  -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT

       o Limited  wide layout.  A width limit reduces the width, but some com-
         modities will be hidden:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  ||                             2012                             2013                   2014                            Total
                ==================++===========================================================================================================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more..  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more..  -11.00 ITOT, 3 more..  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more..
                ------------------++---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more..  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more..  -11.00 ITOT, 3 more..  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more..

       o Tall layout.  Each commodity gets a new line  (may  be  different  in
         each column), and account names are repeated:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  ||       2012        2013         2014        Total
                ==================++==================================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT   70.00 GLD  -11.00 ITOT    70.00 GLD
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD  18.00 ITOT  4881.44 USD   17.00 ITOT
                 Assets:US:ETrade ||  12.00 VEA  -98.12 USD    14.00 VEA  5120.50 USD
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT   10.00 VEA   170.00 VHT    36.00 VEA
                 Assets:US:ETrade ||              18.00 VHT                294.00 VHT
                ------------------++--------------------------------------------------
                                  || 10.00 ITOT   70.00 GLD  -11.00 ITOT    70.00 GLD
                                  || 337.18 USD  18.00 ITOT  4881.44 USD   17.00 ITOT
                                  ||  12.00 VEA  -98.12 USD    14.00 VEA  5120.50 USD
                                  || 106.00 VHT   10.00 VEA   170.00 VHT    36.00 VEA
                                  ||              18.00 VHT                294.00 VHT

       o Bare  layout.  Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each commod-
         ity gets its own report row, account names are repeated:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  || Commodity    2012    2013     2014    Total
                ==================++=============================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || GLD             0   70.00        0    70.00
                 Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT        10.00   18.00   -11.00    17.00
                 Assets:US:ETrade || USD        337.18  -98.12  4881.44  5120.50
                 Assets:US:ETrade || VEA         12.00   10.00    14.00    36.00
                 Assets:US:ETrade || VHT        106.00   18.00   170.00   294.00
                ------------------++---------------------------------------------
                                  || GLD             0   70.00        0    70.00
                                  || ITOT        10.00   18.00   -11.00    17.00
                                  || USD        337.18  -98.12  4881.44  5120.50
                                  || VEA         12.00   10.00    14.00    36.00
                                  || VHT        106.00   18.00   170.00   294.00

       o Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is  useful  for  producing
         data that is easier to consume, eg when making charts:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare
                "account","commodity","balance"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00"
                "total","GLD","70.00"
                "total","ITOT","17.00"
                "total","USD","5120.50"
                "total","VEA","36.00"
                "total","VHT","294.00"

       o Tidy  layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable is
         a  column  and  each  row  represents  a  single  data   point   (see
         https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-
         data.html).  This kind of data is the easiest to process  with  other
         software:

                $ 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"

   Sorting by amount
       With  -S/--sort-amount,  accounts with the largest (most positive) bal-
       ances are shown first.  Eg: hledger bal expenses -MAS shows  your  big-
       gest  averaged monthly expenses first.  When more than one commodity is
       present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically  earliest  commodity
       first,  and  then  by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a
       commodity, it is treated as 0).

       Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so  -S
       shows  these  in  reverse  order.   To  work  around  this, you can add
       --invert to flip the signs.  (Or, use one of the higher-level  reports,
       which  flip the sign automatically.  Eg: hledger incomestatement -MAS).


   Percentages
       With -%/--percent, balance reports show each account's value  expressed
       as a percentage of the (column) total:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses -Q -%
              Balance changes in 2008:

                                 || 2008Q1   2008Q2  2008Q3  2008Q4
              ===================++=================================
               expenses:food     ||      0   50.0 %       0       0
               expenses:supplies ||      0   50.0 %       0       0
              -------------------++---------------------------------
                                 ||      0  100.0 %       0       0

       Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a col-
       umn have mixed signs.  In this case, make a separate  report  for  each
       sign, eg:

              $ hledger bal -% amt:`>0`
              $ hledger bal -% amt:`<0`

       Similarly,  if  the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert
       them to one commodity with -B, -V, -X or --value, or  make  a  separate
       report for each commodity:

              $ hledger bal -% cur:\\$
              $ hledger bal -% cur:EUR

   Balance change, end balance
       It's  important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in bal-
       ance reports.  Here is some terminology we use:

       A balance change is the net  amount  added  to,  or  removed  from,  an
       account during some period.

       An  end balance is the amount accumulated in an account as of some date
       (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end  of  day  in
       your timezone).  It is the sum of previous balance changes.

       We  call it a historical end balance if it includes all balance changes
       since the account was created.  For a real world account, this means it
       will  match  the  "historical record", eg the balances reported in your
       bank statements or bank web UI.  (If they are correct!)

       In general, balance changes are what you want  to  see  when  reviewing
       revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to
       see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts.

       balance  shows  balance changes by default.  To see accurate historical
       end balances:

       1. Initialise account starting  balances  with  an  "opening  balances"
          transaction  (a  transfer  from  equity  to the account), unless the
          journal covers the account's full lifetime.

       2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by not
          specifying  a  report  start  date,  or by using the -H/--historical
          flag.  (-H causes report start date to be ignored when summing post-
          ings.)

   Balance report types
       For more flexible reporting, there are three important option groups:

       hledger  balance  [CALCULATIONTYPE]  [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE]
       ...

       The first two are the most  important:  calculation  type  selects  the
       basic  calculation  to  perform for each table cell, while accumulation
       type says which postings should be included in each cell's calculation.
       Typically  one  or  both of these are selected by default, so you don't
       need to write them explicitly.  A valuation type can be  added  if  you
       want to convert the basic report to value or cost.

       Calculation type:
       The basic calculation to perform for each table cell.  It is one of:

       o --sum : sum the posting amounts (default)

       o --budget : like --sum but also show a goal amount

       o --valuechange : show the change in period-end historical balance val-
         ues (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or  market  price  fluctua-
         tions)

       o --gain  :  show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued
         balance minus each amount's original cost)

       Accumulation type:
       Which postings should be included in each cell's  calculation.   It  is
       one of:

       o --change  :  postings  from column start to column end, ie within the
         cell's period.  Typically used to  see  revenues/expenses.   (default
         for balance, incomestatement)

       o --cumulative  :  postings from report start to column end, eg to show
         changes accumulated since the report's start date.  Rarely used.

       o --historical/-H : postings from journal start to column end,  ie  all
         postings from account creation to the end of the cell's period.  Typ-
         ically  used  to  see  historical  end  balances  of  assets/liabili-
         ties/equity.   (default  for  balancesheet, balancesheetequity, cash-
         flow)

       Valuation type:
       Which kind of valuation, valuation date(s) and optionally a target val-
       uation commodity to use.  It is one of:

       o no valuation, show amounts in their original commodities (default)

       o --value=cost[,COMM] : no valuation, show amounts converted to cost

       o --value=then[,COMM] : show value at transaction dates

       o --value=end[,COMM]  :  show value at period end date(s) (default with
         --valuechange, --gain)

       o --value=now[,COMM] : show value at today's date

       o --value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM] : show value at another date

       or one of their aliases: --cost/-B, --market/-V or --exchange/-X.

       Most combinations of these options should produce  reasonable  reports,
       but  if  you  find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know.  The
       following restrictions are applied:

       o --valuechange implies --value=end

       o --valuechange makes --change the default  when  used  with  the  bal-
         ancesheet/balancesheetequity commands

       o --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T

       For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and valua-
       tion show:


       Valua-     no valuation       --value= then       --value= end       --value= YYYY-
       tion:                                                                MM-DD /now
       >Accumu-
       lation:
       v
       ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       --change   change in period   sum  of  posting-   period-end         DATE-value  of
                                     date market  val-   value of change    change      in
                                     ues in period       in period          period
       --cumu-    change      from   sum  of  posting-   period-end         DATE-value  of
       lative     report  start to   date  market val-   value of change    change    from
                  period end         ues  from  report   from     report    report   start
                                     start  to  period   start to period    to period end
                                     end                 end
       --his-     change      from   sum  of  posting-   period-end         DATE-value  of
       torical    journal start to   date market  val-   value of change    change    from
       /-H        period end (his-   ues  from journal   from    journal    journal  start
                  torical end bal-   start  to  period   start to period    to period end
                  ance)              end                 end

   Useful balance reports
       Some frequently used balance options/reports are:

       o bal -M revenues expenses
       Show revenues/expenses in each month.  Also available as  the  incomes-
       tatement command.

       o bal -M -H assets liabilities
       Show  historical  asset/liability  balances  at  each  month end.  Also
       available as the balancesheet command.

       o bal -M -H assets liabilities equity
       Show historical asset/liability/equity  balances  at  each  month  end.
       Also available as the balancesheetequity command.

       o bal -M assets not:receivable
       Show  changes  to  liquid  assets in each month.  Also available as the
       cashflow command.

       Also:

       o bal -M expenses -2 -SA
       Show monthly expenses summarised to  depth  2  and  sorted  by  average
       amount.

       o bal -M --budget expenses
       Show monthly expenses and budget goals.

       o bal -M --valuechange investments
       Show monthly change in market value of investment assets.

       o bal  investments  --valuechange  -D  date:lastweek  amt:'>1000'  -STA
         [--invert]
       Show top gainers [or losers] last week

   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 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:

              ;; Budget
              ~ monthly
                income  $2000
                expenses:food    $400
                expenses:bus     $50
                expenses:movies  $30
                assets:bank:checking

              ;; Two months worth of expenses
              2017-11-01
                income  $1950
                expenses:food    $396
                expenses:bus     $49
                expenses:movies  $30
                expenses:supplies  $20
                assets:bank:checking

              2017-12-01
                income  $2100
                expenses:food    $412
                expenses:bus     $53
                expenses:gifts   $100
                assets:bank:checking

       You can now see a monthly budget report:

              $ hledger balance -M --budget
              Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31:

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

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

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

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

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

       o Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted,  even
         in list mode.

       This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg above,
       the expenses actual amount includes the  gifts  and  supplies  transac-
       tions,  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]

       For more examples and notes, see Budgeting.

   Budget report start date
       This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget  reports,  it's  a
       good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of
       a reporting period, because a periodic rule like  ~  monthly  generates
       its  transactions  on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no
       regular transactions on the 1st, the default report  start  date  could
       exclude  that  budget  goal, which can be a little surprising.  Eg here
       the default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15:

              ~ monthly in 2020
                (expenses:food)  $500

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

              $ hledger bal expenses --budget
              Budget performance in 2020-01-15:

                            || 2020-01-15
              ==============++============
               <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]

   Budgets and subaccounts
       You  can  add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy.  If you
       have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then bud-
       get(s)  of  the  child account(s) would be added to the budget of their
       parent, much like account balances behave.

       In the most simple case this means that once you add a  budget  to  any
       account, all its parents would have budget as well.

       To illustrate this, consider the following budget:

              ~ monthly from 2019/01
                  expenses:personal             $1,000.00
                  expenses:personal:electronics    $100.00
                  liabilities

       With  this,  monthly  budget  for electronics is defined to be $100 and
       budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000,  which  implicitly
       means that budget for both expenses:personal and expenses is $1100.

       Transactions  in  expenses:personal:electronics  will  be  counted both
       towards its $100 budget and $1100 of expenses:personal ,  and  transac-
       tions  in  any  other  subaccount of expenses:personal would be counted
       towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal.

       For example, let's consider these transactions:

              ~ monthly from 2019/01
                  expenses:personal             $1,000.00
                  expenses:personal:electronics    $100.00
                  liabilities

              2019/01/01 Google home hub
                  expenses:personal:electronics          $90.00
                  liabilities                           $-90.00

              2019/01/02 Phone screen protector
                  expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades          $10.00
                  liabilities

              2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket
                  expenses:personal:train tickets       $153.00
                  liabilities

              2019/01/03 Flowers
                  expenses:personal          $30.00
                  liabilities

       As you can see, we  have  transactions  in  expenses:personal:electron-
       ics:upgrades  and  expenses:personal:train  tickets,  and since both of
       these accounts are without explicitly defined  budget,  these  transac-
       tions would be counted towards budgets of expenses:personal:electronics
       and expenses:personal accordingly:

              $ hledger balance --budget -M
              Budget performance in 2019/01:

                                             ||                           Jan
              ===============================++===============================
               expenses                      ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal             ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal:electronics ||  $100.00 [ 100% of   $100.00]
               liabilities                   || $-283.00 [  26% of $-1100.00]
              -------------------------------++-------------------------------
                                             ||        0 [                 0]

       And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation  and
       consumption:

              $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty
              Budget performance in 2019/01:

                                                      ||                           Jan
              ========================================++===============================
               expenses                               ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal                      ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal:electronics          ||  $100.00 [ 100% of   $100.00]
               expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades ||   $10.00
               expenses:personal:train tickets        ||  $153.00
               liabilities                            || $-283.00 [  26% of $-1100.00]
              ----------------------------------------++-------------------------------
                                                      ||        0 [                 0]

   Selecting budget goals
       The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate spe-
       cial "goal transactions", which generate  the  goal  amounts  for  each
       account  in  each  report subperiod.  When troubleshooting, you can use
       the print command 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.

   Customising single-period balance reports
       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 (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)

       o MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional)

       o MAX truncates at this width (optional)

       o FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of:

         o depth_spacer  - a number of spaces equal to the account's depth, or
           if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces.

         o account - the account's name

         o total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified

       Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control  how  multi-com-
       modity amounts are rendered:

       o %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default)

       o %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned

       o %, - render on one line, comma-separated

       There  are  some  quirks.   Eg in one-line mode, %(depth_spacer) has no
       effect, instead %(account) has indentation built  in.   Experimentation
       may be needed to get pleasing results.

       Some example formats:

       o %(total) - the account's total

       o %-20.20(account)  -  the account's name, left justified, padded to 20
         characters and clipped at 20 characters

       o %,%-50(account)  %25(total) - account name padded to  50  characters,
         total  padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on
         one line

       o %20(total)  %2(depth_spacer)%-(account) - the default format for  the
         single-column balance report

   balancesheet
       balancesheet, bs
       This  command  displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal-
       ances of asset and liability accounts.  (To see equity as well, use the
       balancesheetequity  command.)  Amounts  are  shown with normal positive
       sign, as in conventional financial statements.

       This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash  or  Liability
       type  (see  account  types).   Or  if no such accounts are declared, it
       shows top-level accounts named asset or  liability  (case  insensitive,
       plurals allowed) and their subaccounts.

       Example:

              $ hledger balancesheet
              Balance Sheet

              Assets:
                               $-1  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-2    cash
              --------------------
                               $-1

              Liabilities:
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                $1

              Total:
              --------------------
                                 0

       This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup-
       ports many of that command's features, such  as  multi-period  reports.
       It  is  similar  to  hledger  balance  -H  assets liabilities, but with
       smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed  with  their  sign
       flipped.

       This  command  also  supports  the output destination and output format
       options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html,  and  (experi-
       mental) json.

   balancesheetequity
       balancesheetequity, bse
       This  command  displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal-
       ances of asset, liability and equity accounts.  Amounts are shown  with
       normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

       This  report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or
       Equity type (see account types).  Or if no such accounts are  declared,
       it  shows  top-level  accounts  named  asset, liability or equity (case
       insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts.

       Example:

              $ hledger balancesheetequity
              Balance Sheet With Equity

              Assets:
                               $-2  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-3    cash
              --------------------
                               $-2

              Liabilities:
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                $1

              Equity:
                        $1  equity:owner
              --------------------
                        $1

              Total:
              --------------------
                                 0

       This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup-
       ports  many  of  that command's features, such as multi-period reports.
       It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity, but with
       smarter  account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with their
       sign flipped.

       This command also supports the output  destination  and  output  format
       options  The  output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi-
       mental) json.

   cashflow
       cashflow, cf
       This command displays a cashflow statement,  showing  the  inflows  and
       outflows  affecting  "cash"  (ie,  liquid,  easily convertible) assets.
       Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional  finan-
       cial statements.

       This  report  shows  accounts  declared with the Cash type (see account
       types).  Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts

       o under a top-level  account  named  asset  (case  insensitive,  plural
         allowed)

       o whose name contains some variation of cash, bank, checking or saving.

       More precisely: all accounts matching  this  case  insensitive  regular
       expression:

       ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)

       and their subaccounts.

       An example cashflow report:

              $ hledger cashflow
              Cashflow Statement

              Cash flows:
                               $-1  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-2    cash
              --------------------
                               $-1

              Total:
              --------------------
                               $-1

       This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup-
       ports  many  of  that command's features, such as multi-period reports.
       It is  similar  to  hledger  balance  assets  not:fixed  not:investment
       not:receivable, but with smarter account detection.

       This  command  also  supports  the output destination and output format
       options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html,  and  (experi-
       mental) json.

   check
       check
       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

       Here are the checks currently available:

   Basic checks
       These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger com-
       mands, including check:

       o parseable - data files are well-formed and can be successfully parsed

       o balancedwithautoconversion - all transactions are balanced, inferring
         missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting  commodities
         using transaction prices or automatically-inferred transaction prices

       o assertions - all balance  assertions  in  the  journal  are  passing.
         (This check can be disabled with -I/--ignore-assertions.)

   Strict checks
       These additional checks are run when the -s/--strict (strict mode) flag
       is used.  Or, they can be run by giving their  names  as  arguments  to
       check:

       o accounts - all account names used by transactions have been declared

       o commodities - all commodity symbols used have been declared

       o balancednoautoconversion  - transactions are balanced, possibly using
         explicit transaction prices but not inferred ones

   Other checks
       These checks can be run only by giving  their  names  as  arguments  to
       check.   They  are  more  specialised  and  not desirable for everyone,
       therefore optional:

       o ordereddates - transactions are ordered by date within each file

       o payees - all payees used by transactions have been declared

       o uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique

   Custom checks
       A few more checks are are available as  separate  add-on  commands,  in
       https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin:

       o hledger-check-tagfiles  -  all  tag  values  containing  / (a forward
         slash) exist as file paths

       o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance  assertions  are
         passing

       You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks.  See:
       Cookbook -> Scripting.

   close
       close, equity
       Prints a sample "closing" transaction bringing specified  account  bal-
       ances  to zero, and an inverse "opening" transaction restoring the same
       account balances.

       If like most people you split your journal files by time, eg  by  year:
       at  the  end  of  the year you can use this command to "close out" your
       asset and liability (and perhaps equity) balances in the old file,  and
       reinitialise  them in the new file.  This helps ensure that report bal-
       ances remain correct whether  you  are  including  old  files  or  not.
       (Because  all  closing/opening  transactions except the very first will
       cancel out - see example below.)

       Some people also use this command to close out revenue and expense bal-
       ances  at  the  end of an accounting period.  This properly records the
       period's profit/loss as  "retained  earnings"  (part  of  equity),  and
       allows the accounting equation (A-L=E) to balance, which you could then
       check by the bse report's zero total.

       You can print just the closing transaction by using the  --close  flag,
       or just the opening transaction with the --open flag.

       Their  descriptions  are  closing  balances  and  opening  balances  by
       default; you can customise these with the --close-desc and  --open-desc
       options.

       Just  one  balancing equity posting is used by default, with the amount
       left implicit.  The default account name is equity:opening/closing bal-
       ances.   You  can  customise  the account name(s) with --close-acct and
       --open-acct.  (If you specify only one of these, it will  be  used  for
       both.)

       With  --x/--explicit, the equity posting's amount will be shown explic-
       itly, and if it involves multiple commodities, there will be a separate
       equity posting for each commodity (as in the print command).

       With --interleaved, each equity posting is shown next to the posting it
       balances (good for troubleshooting).

   close and prices
       Transaction prices  are  ignored  (and  discarded)  by  closing/opening
       transactions, by default.  With --show-costs, they are preserved; there
       will be a separate equity posting for  each  cost  in  each  commodity.
       This  means balance -B reports will look the same after the transition.
       Note if you have many foreign currency or investment transactions, this
       will generate very large journal entries.

   close date
       The  default  closing  date  is  yesterday,  or the journal's end date,
       whichever is later.

       Unless you are running close on  exactly  the  first  day  of  the  new
       period,  you'll  want  to  override  the closing date.  This is done by
       specifying a report end date, where "last day  of  the  report  period"
       will  be  the  closing  date.  The opening date is always the following
       day.  So to close on  (end  of)  2020-12-31  and  open  on  (start  of)
       2021-01-01, any of these will work:


       end date argument   explanation
       -----------------------------------------------
       -e 2021-01-01       end dates are exclusive
       -e 2021             equivalent,    per   smart
                           dates
       -p 2020             equivalent,  the  period's
                           begin date is ignored
       date:2020           equivalent query

   Example: close asset/liability accounts for file transition
       Carrying asset/liability balances from 2020.journal into a new file for
       2021:

              $ hledger close -f 2020.journal -p 2020 assets liabilities
              # copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2020.journal
              # copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2021.journal

       Or:

              $ hledger close -f 2020.journal -p 2020 assets liabilities --open  >> 2021.journal  # add 2021's first transaction
              $ hledger close -f 2020.journal -p 2020 assets liabilities --close >> 2020.journal  # add 2020's last transaction

       Now,

              $ hledger bs -f 2021.journal                   # just new file - balances correct
              $ hledger bs -f 2020.journal -f 2021.journal   # old and new files - balances correct
              $ hledger bs -f 2020.journal                   # just old files - balances are zero ?
                                                             # (exclude final closing txn, see below)

   Hiding opening/closing transactions
       Although the closing/opening transactions cancel out, they will be vis-
       ible  in reports like print and register, creating some visual clutter.
       You can exclude them all with a query, like:

              $ hledger print not:desc:'opening|closing'             # less typing
              $ hledger print not:'equity:opening/closing balances'  # more precise

       But when reporting on multiple files, this can get a  bit  tricky;  you
       may need to keep the earliest opening balances, for a historical regis-
       ter report; or you may need to suppress a closing transaction,  to  see
       year-end  balances.  If you find yourself needing more precise queries,
       here's one solution: add more easily-matched  tags  to  opening/closing
       transactions, like this:

              ; 2019.journal
              2019-01-01 opening balances  ; earliest opening txn, no tag here
              ...
              2019-12-31 closing balances  ; clopen:2020
              ...

              ; 2020.journal
              2020-01-01 opening balances  ; clopen:2020
              ...
              2020-12-31 closing balances  ; clopen:2021
              ...

              ; 2021.journal
              2021-01-01 opening balances  ; clopen:2021
              ...

       Now with

              ; all.journal
              include 2019.journal
              include 2020.journal
              include 2021.journal

       you could do eg:

              $ hledger -f all.journal reg -H checking not:tag:clopen
                  # all years checking register, hiding non-essential opening/closing txns

              $ hledger -f all.journal bs -p 2020 not:tag:clopen=2020
                  # 2020 year end balances, suppressing 2020 closing txn

   close and balance assertions
       The  closing  and opening transactions will include balance assertions,
       verifying that the accounts have first been  reset  to  zero  and  then
       restored  to  their  previous  balance.   These  provide valuable error
       checking, alerting you when things get out of line, but you can  ignore
       them temporarily with -I or just remove them if you prefer.

       You probably shouldn't use status or realness filters (like -C or -R or
       status:) with close, or the generated balance assertions will depend on
       these  flags.   Likewise, if you run this command with --auto, the bal-
       ance assertions would probably always require --auto.

       Multi-day transactions (where some  postings  have  a  different  date)
       break the balance assertions, because the money is temporarily "invisi-
       ble" while in transit:

              2020/12/30 a purchase made in december, cleared in the next year
                  expenses:food          5
                  assets:bank:checking  -5  ; date: 2021/1/2

       To fix the assertions, you can add a temporary account  to  track  such
       in-transit  money (splitting the multi-day transaction into two single-
       day transactions):

              ; in 2020.journal:
              2020/12/30 a purchase made in december, cleared in the next year
                  expenses:food          5
                  liabilities:pending

              ; in 2021.journal:
              2021/1/2 clearance of last year's pending transactions
                  liabilities:pending    5 = 0
                  assets:bank:checking

   Example: close revenue/expense accounts to retained earnings
       For this, use --close to suppress the opening transaction, as it's  not
       needed.   Also  you'll  want  to change the equity account name to your
       equivalent of "equity:retained earnings".

       Closing 2021's first quarter revenues/expenses:

              $ hledger close -f 2021.journal --close revenues expenses -p 2021Q1 \
                  --close-acct='equity:retained earnings' >> 2021.journal

       The same, using the default journal and current year:

              $ hledger close --close revenues expenses -p Q1 \
                  --close-acct='equity:retained earnings' >> $LEDGER_FILE

       Now, the first quarter's balance sheet should show a zero  (unless  you
       are using @/@@ notation without equity postings):

              $ hledger bse -p Q1

       And we must suppress the closing transaction to see the first quarter's
       income statement (using the description; not:'retained earnings'  won't
       work here):

              $ hledger is -p Q1 not:desc:'closing balances'

   codes
       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:

              1/1 (123)
               (a)  1

              1/1 ()
               (a)  1

              1/1
               (a)  1

              1/1 (126)
               (a)  1

              $ hledger codes
              123
              124
              126

              $ hledger codes -E
              123
              124


              126

   commodities
       commodities
       List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal.

   descriptions
       descriptions
       List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions.

       This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in transactions,
       in  alphabetic order.  You can add a query to select a subset of trans-
       actions.

       Example:

              $ hledger descriptions
              Store Name
              Gas Station | Petrol
              Person A

   diff
       diff
       Compares a particular account's transactions in two  input  files.   It
       shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in
       the other.

       More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either file,
       it  looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts the
       same amount to the same  account  (ignoring  date,  description,  etc.)
       Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when mul-
       tiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry.

       This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from
       your bank (eg as CSV data).  When hledger and your bank disagree  about
       the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your journal to
       find out the cause.

       Examples:

              $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro
              These transactions are in the first file only:

              2014/01/01 Opening Balances
                  assets:bank:giro              EUR ...
                  ...
                  equity:opening balances       EUR -...

              These transactions are in the second file only:

   files
       files
       List all files included in the journal.  With a  REGEX  argument,  only
       file  names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown.

   help
       help
       Show the hledger user manual in  one  of  several  formats,  optionally
       positioned at a given TOPIC (if possible).

       TOPIC  is  any  heading in the manual, or the start of any heading (but
       not the middle).  It is case insensitive.

       Some examples: commands, print, forecast, "auto  postings",  "commodity
       column".

       This  command  shows  the user manual built in to this hledger version.
       It can be useful if the correct version of the hledger manual,  or  the
       usual viewing tools, are not installed on your system.

       By default it uses the best viewer it can find in $PATH, in this order:
       info, man, $PAGER (unless a topic is specified), less, or stdout.  When
       run non-interactively, it always uses stdout.  Or you can select a par-
       ticular viewer with the -i (info), -m (man), or -p (pager) flags.

   import
       import
       Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and  add  them
       to  the  journal.   Or with --dry-run, just print the transactions that
       would be added.  Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs'  trans-
       actions as imported, without actually importing any.

       This  command  may  append  new  transactions  to the main journal file
       (which should be in journal format).   Existing  transactions  are  not
       changed.   This  is  one of the few hledger commands that writes to the
       journal file (see also add).

       Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an  out-
       put file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing data
       will not be changed).  The input files are specified as  arguments,  so
       to  import  one  or  more  CSV files to your main journal, you will run
       hledger import bank.csv or perhaps hledger import *.csv.

       Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the most
       common import source, and these docs focus on that case.

   Deduplication
       As  a convenience import does deduplication while reading transactions.
       This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the same", but rather
       "ignore transactions that have been seen before".  This is intended for
       when you are periodically importing  foreign  data  which  may  contain
       already-imported  transactions.   So eg, if every day you download bank
       CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely run hledger  import
       bank.csv  and only new transactions will be imported.  (import is idem-
       potent.)

       Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often  do  not  come  with
       unique  identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming
       that:

       1. new items always have the newest dates

       2. item dates do not change across reads

       3. and items with the same date  remain  in  the  same  relative  order
          across reads.

       These  are  often  true of CSV files representing transactions, or true
       enough so that it works pretty well in practice.  1 is  important,  but
       violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if
       you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less  likely  to
       be the ones affected).

       hledger  remembers the latest date processed in each input file by sav-
       ing a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory.  Eg when read-
       ing  finance/bank.csv,  it  will  look for and update the finance/.lat-
       est.bank.csv state file.  The format is simple: one or more lines  con-
       taining  the  same  ISO-format  date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I have pro-
       cessed transactions up to this date, and this  many  of  them  on  that
       date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files yourself.
       But if needed, you can delete them  to  reset  the  state  (making  all
       transactions  "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a cer-
       tain date.

       Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also  be  done  by
       print --new, but this is less often used.

   Import testing
       With  --dry-run,  the transactions that will be imported are printed to
       the terminal, without updating your journal or state files.  The output
       is  valid  journal  format, like the print command, so you can re-parse
       it.  Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV  rules  have  not
       categorised:

              $ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown

       or (live updating):

              $ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown'

   Importing balance assignments
       Entries  added  by import will have their posting amounts made explicit
       (like hledger print -x).  This means that any  balance  assignments  in
       imported  files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see
       the main file's account balances.  As a result, importing entries  with
       balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances
       and not posting  amounts)  will  probably  generate  incorrect  posting
       amounts.  To avoid this problem, use print instead of import:

              $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE

       (If  you  think  import  should leave amounts implicit like print does,
       please test it and send a pull request.)

   Commodity display styles
       Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity
       styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file.

   incomestatement
       incomestatement, is
       This  command  displays  an  income  statement,  showing  revenues  and
       expenses during one or more periods.  Amounts  are  shown  with  normal
       positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

       This  report  shows  accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type
       (see account types).  Or if no such accounts  are  declared,  it  shows
       top-level  accounts  named  revenue or income or expense (case insensi-
       tive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts.

       Example:

              $ hledger incomestatement
              Income Statement

              Revenues:
                               $-2  income
                               $-1    gifts
                               $-1    salary
              --------------------
                               $-2

              Expenses:
                                $2  expenses
                                $1    food
                                $1    supplies
              --------------------
                                $2

              Total:
              --------------------
                                 0

       This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup-
       ports  many  of  that command's features, such as multi-period reports.
       It is similar to hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses, but with
       smarter  account  detection,  and  revenues/income displayed with their
       sign flipped.

       This command also supports the output  destination  and  output  format
       options  The  output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi-
       mental) json.

   notes
       notes
       List the unique notes that appear in transactions.

       This command lists the unique notes that  appear  in  transactions,  in
       alphabetic  order.   You can add a query to select a subset of transac-
       tions.  The note is the part of the transaction description after  a  |
       character (or if there is no |, the whole description).

       Example:

              $ hledger notes
              Petrol
              Snacks

   payees
       payees
       List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions.

       This  command  lists  unique payee/payer names which have been declared
       with payee directives (--declared), used  in  transaction  descriptions
       (--used), or both (the default).

       The  payee/payer  is the part of the transaction description before a |
       character (or if there is no |, the whole description).

       You can add query arguments to select a subset of  transactions.   This
       implies --used.

       Example:

              $ hledger payees
              Store Name
              Gas Station
              Person A

   prices
       prices
       Print  market  price directives from the journal.  With --infer-market-
       prices, generate additional  market  prices  from  transaction  prices.
       With  --infer-reverse-prices,  also generate market prices by inverting
       transaction prices.  Prices (and postings providing transaction prices)
       can  be  filtered  by  a query.  Price amounts are displayed with their
       full precision.

   print
       print
       Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date.

       The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the
       journal file, sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date).

       Amounts  are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg the
       placement of commodity symbols will be consistent.  All of their  deci-
       mal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one alter-
       ation: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.)

       Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not across
       all transactions).

       Directives  and  inter-transaction  comments  are not shown, currently.
       This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it
       to  reformat  your  journal  you should take care to also copy over the
       directives and file-level comments.

       Eg:

              $ hledger print
              2008/01/01 income
                  assets:bank:checking            $1
                  income:salary                  $-1

              2008/06/01 gift
                  assets:bank:checking            $1
                  income:gifts                   $-1

              2008/06/02 save
                  assets:bank:saving              $1
                  assets:bank:checking           $-1

              2008/06/03 * eat & shop
                  expenses:food                $1
                  expenses:supplies            $1
                  assets:cash                 $-2

              2008/12/31 * pay off
                  liabilities:debts               $1
                  assets:bank:checking           $-1

       print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can  process
       it again with a second hledger command.  This can be useful for certain
       kinds of search, eg:

              # Show running total of food expenses paid from cash.
              # -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed.
              $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food

       There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable:

       o Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion  or  bal-
         ance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail.

       o Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts.

       o Account aliases can generate bad account names.

       Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is pre-
       served.  For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will
       not  appear  in  the  output.   Similarly,  when a transaction price is
       implied but not written, it will not appear in the output.  You can use
       the  -x/--explicit  flag  to  make  all  amounts and transaction prices
       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 transaction prices are converted to cost
       using that price.  This can be used for troubleshooting.

       With -m/--match and a STR argument, print will show at most one  trans-
       action:  the  one  one whose description is most similar to STR, and is
       most recent.  STR should contain at least two characters.  If there  is
       no similar-enough match, no transaction will be shown.

       With  --new, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a pre-
       vious run.  This uses the same deduplication system as the import  com-
       mand.  (See import's docs for details.)

       This  command  also  supports  the output destination and output format
       options The output formats supported are txt, csv,  and  (experimental)
       json and sql.

       Here's an example of print's CSV output:

              $ hledger print -Ocsv
              "txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment"
              "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","",""
              "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","",""
              "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","",""
              "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","",""
              "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","",""
              "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","",""
              "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","",""
              "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","",""
              "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","",""
              "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","",""
              "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","",""

       o There  is  one  CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's
         fields repeated.

       o The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong to
         the  same transaction.  (This number might change if transactions are
         reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in  a  different
         order, etc.)

       o The  amount  is  separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount"
         (numeric quantity) fields.

       o The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" col-
         umn,  for convenience.  (Those names are not accurate in the account-
         ing sense; it just puts negative amounts under  credit  and  zero  or
         greater amounts under debit.)

   print-unique
       print-unique
       Print transactions which do not reuse an already-seen description.

       Example:

              $ cat unique.journal
              1/1 test
               (acct:one)  1
              2/2 test
               (acct:two)  2
              $ LEDGER_FILE=unique.journal hledger print-unique
              (-f option not supported)
              2015/01/01 test
                  (acct:one)             1

   register
       register, reg
       Show postings and their running total.

       The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in
       date order, with their running total  or  running  historical  balance.
       (See  also the aregister command, which shows matched transactions in a
       specific account.)

       register normally shows line per posting, but note that multi-commodity
       amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity).

       It  is  typically  used with a query selecting a particular account, to
       see that account's activity:

              $ hledger register checking
              2008/01/01 income               assets:bank:checking            $1           $1
              2008/06/01 gift                 assets:bank:checking            $1           $2
              2008/06/02 save                 assets:bank:checking           $-1           $1
              2008/12/31 pay off              assets:bank:checking           $-1            0

       With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead.

       For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based  on  the  first
       1000  lines;  this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause
       visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted.  If you  want  to
       ensure  perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the
       --align-all flag.

       The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from  any  undisplayed  prior
       postings  to  the  running  total.  This is useful when you want to see
       only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance:

              $ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical
              2008/06/01 gift                 assets:bank:checking            $1           $2
              2008/06/02 save                 assets:bank:checking           $-1           $1
              2008/12/31 pay off              assets:bank:checking           $-1            0

       The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed.

       The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount  instead
       of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the average for
       the whole report period).  This flag implies --empty (see  below).   It
       is  affected  by  --historical.   It  works  best when showing just one
       account and one commodity.

       The --related/-r flag shows the other postings in the  transactions  of
       the postings which would normally be shown.

       The  --invert flag negates all amounts.  For example, it can be used on
       an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative num-
       bers.   It's  also  useful  to  show  postings  on the checking account
       together with the related account:

              $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking

       With a reporting interval, register shows  summary  postings,  one  per
       interval, aggregating the postings to each account:

              $ hledger register --monthly income
              2008/01                 income:salary                          $-1          $-1
              2008/06                 income:gifts                           $-1          $-2

       Periods  with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, are
       not shown by default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them:

              $ hledger register --monthly income -E
              2008/01                 income:salary                          $-1          $-1
              2008/02                                                          0          $-1
              2008/03                                                          0          $-1
              2008/04                                                          0          $-1
              2008/05                                                          0          $-1
              2008/06                 income:gifts                           $-1          $-2
              2008/07                                                          0          $-2
              2008/08                                                          0          $-2
              2008/09                                                          0          $-2
              2008/10                                                          0          $-2
              2008/11                                                          0          $-2
              2008/12                                                          0          $-2

       Often, you'll want to see just one  line  per  interval.   The  --depth
       option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated:

              $ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h
              2008/01                 assets                                  $1           $1
              2008/06                 assets                                 $-1            0
              2008/12                 assets                                 $-1          $-1

       Note  when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these
       will be adjusted outward if necessary to  contain  a  whole  number  of
       intervals.   This  ensures  that  the first and last intervals are full
       length and comparable to the others in the report.

   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.

   register-match
       register-match
       Print the one posting whose transaction description is closest to DESC,
       in the style of the register command.  If there  are  multiple  equally
       good  matches,  it  shows the most recent.  Query options (options, not
       arguments) can be used to restrict the  search  space.   Helps  ledger-
       autosync detect already-seen transactions when importing.

   rewrite
       rewrite
       Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions.
       For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings,  like  print
       --auto.

       This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries.  It reads
       the default journal and prints the transactions, like print,  but  adds
       one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY.  The
       posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing  transac-
       tion's first posting amount.

       Examples:

              $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33  ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts)  $100'
              $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts)  *-1"'
              $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger

       rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like:

              = ^income amt:<0 date:2017
                (liabilities:tax)  *0.33  ; tax on income
                (reserve:grocery)  *0.25  ; reserve 25% for grocery
                (reserve:)  *0.25  ; reserve 25% for grocery

       Note  the  single  quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the
       two spaces between account and amount.

       More:

              $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY]        --add-posting "ACCT  AMTEXPR" ...
              $ hledger rewrite -- ^income        --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33'
              $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts)  *-1"'
              $ hledger rewrite -- ^income        --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency)  *0.25 JPY; diversify'

       Argument for --add-posting option is a  usual  posting  of  transaction
       with  an  exception  for amount specification.  More precisely, you can
       use '*' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a
       factor  for  an  amount  of  original  matched  posting.  If the amount
       includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be  in  the  new
       commodity;  otherwise,  it will be in the matched posting amount's com-
       modity.

   Re-write rules in a file
       During the run this tool will execute  so  called  "Automated  Transac-
       tions" found in any journal it process.  I.e instead of specifying this
       operations in command line you can put them in a journal file.

              $ rewrite-rules.journal

       Make contents look like this:

              = ^income
                  (liabilities:tax)  *.33

              = expenses:gifts
                  budget:gifts  *-1
                  assets:budget  *1

       Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in  trans-
       actions you usually write.  It indicates the query by which you want to
       match the posting to add new ones.

              $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal

       This is something similar to the commands pipeline:

              $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33' \
                | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts      --add-posting 'budget:gifts  *-1'       \
                                                              --add-posting 'assets:budget  *1'       \
                > rewritten-tidy-output.journal

       It is important to understand that relative order of  such  entries  in
       journal  is important.  You can re-use result of previously added post-
       ings.

   Diff output format
       To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files  you  may
       find useful output in form of unified diff.

              $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33'

       Output might look like:

              --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal
              +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal
              @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@
               2008/01/01 income
              -    assets:bank:checking  $1
              +    assets:bank:checking            $1
                   income:salary
              +    (liabilities:tax)                0
              @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@
               2008/06/01 gift
              -    assets:bank:checking  $1
              +    assets:bank:checking            $1
                   income:gifts
              +    (liabilities:tax)                0

       If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions contain-
       ing the posting that matches your query be updated.  Note that multiple
       files  might  be  update according to list of input files specified via
       --file options and include directives inside of these files.

       Be careful.  Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of  output
       from hledger print.

       See also:

       https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99

   rewrite vs. print --auto
       This  command  predates  print --auto, and currently does much the same
       thing, but with these differences:

       o with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all  other
         files.   print  --auto  uses standard directive scoping; rules affect
         only child files.

       o rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten;  all  are
         printed.  print --auto's query limits which transactions are printed.

       o rewrite applies rules specified on command line or  in  the  journal.
         print --auto applies rules specified in the journal.

   roi
       roi
       Shows  the  time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return
       on your investments.

       At a minimum, you need to supply  a  query  (which  could  be  just  an
       account  name)  to  select  your  investment(s) with --inv, and another
       query to identify your profit and loss transactions with --pnl.

       If you do not record changes in the value of your investment  manually,
       or  do  not  require  computation  of time-weighted return (TWR), --pnl
       could be an empty query (--pnl "" or --pnl STR where STR does not match
       any of your accounts).

       This  command  will compute and display the internalized rate of return
       (IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your  investments  for
       the  time period requested.  Both rates of return are annualized before
       display, regardless of the length of reporting interval.

       Price directives will be taken into account if you  supply  appropriate
       --cost or --value flags (see VALUATION).

       Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons:

       o Error  (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR).
         Possible causes: IRR  is  huge  (>1000000%),  balance  of  investment
         becomes negative at some point in time.

       o Error  (SearchFailed):  Failed  to find solution for Internal Rate of
         Return (IRR).  Either search does not converge to a solution, or con-
         verges too slowly.

       Examples:

       o Using   roi   to  compute  total  return  of  investment  in  stocks:
         https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/invest-
         ing/roi-unrealised.ledger

       o Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html

   Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl
       Note that --inv and --pnl's argument is a query, and queries could have
       several space-separated terms (see QUERIES).

       To indicate that all search terms form  single  command-line  argument,
       you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters):

              $ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...'

       If  any  query  terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra
       level of nested quoting, eg:

              $ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'"

   Semantics of --inv and --pnl
       Query supplied to --inv has to match all transactions that are  related
       to your investment.  Transactions not matching --inv will be ignored.

       In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match --inv to be
       "investment postings" and other postings (not matching --inv)  will  be
       sorted  into  two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", as ROI
       needs to know which part of the investment value is your  contributions
       and which is due to the return on investment.

       o "Cash  flow"  is  depositing  or withdrawing money, buying or selling
         assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity and
         any other commodity.  Example:

                2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil
                  assets:cash          -$100
                  investment:snake oil

                2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil
                  assets:cash           $10
                  investment:snake oil  = 0

       o "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment:

                2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value
                  investment:snake oil  = $57
                  equity:unrealized profit or loss

       All  non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless they
       match --pnl query.  Changes in value of your investment due to  "profit
       and  loss"  postings  will  be  considered  as  part of your investment
       return.

       Example: if you use --inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized, then  postings
       in the example below would be classifed as:

              2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1
                assets:cash          -$100   ; cash flow posting
                investment:snake oil         ; investment posting

              2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2
                equity:unrealized pnl  -$100 ; profit and loss posting
                snake oil                    ; investment posting

              2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3
                equity:unrealized pnl        ; profit and loss posting
                cash          -$100          ; cash flow posting
                snake oil     $50            ; investment posting

   IRR and TWR explained
       "ROI"  stands  for "return on investment".  Traditionally this was com-
       puted as a difference between current value of investment and its  ini-
       tial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value.

       However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where invest-
       ments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money,  and  where  rate  of
       growth is fixed over time.  For more complex scenarios you need differ-
       ent ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements two  of
       them: IRR and TWR.

       Internal  rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate of
       return")  takes  into  account  effects  of  in-flows  and   out-flows.
       Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains
       would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller  percent-
       age  of  your initial investment, and if you are adding to your invest-
       ment, you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the  same
       rate  of  return).   IRR  is  a  way to compute rate of return for each
       period between in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a
       way  that gives you a compound annual rate of return that investment is
       expected to generate.

       As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that  you
       personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are the
       postings that match the query in the--inv argument and  NOT  match  the
       query in the--pnl argument.

       If  you  manually  record  changes  in  the value of your investment as
       transactions that balance them against "profit and loss"  (or  "unreal-
       ized  gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to
       compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on  the  rate
       of  return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or
       close to the days when in- or out-flows occur.

       In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as  computation  of  net
       present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present
       value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero.  This
       could  be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done
       discounted cash flow analysis before.  Implementation of IRR in hledger
       should produce results that match the XIRR formula in Excel.

       Second  way  to  compute  rate of return that roi command implements is
       called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR".  Like IRR, it will also
       break  the  history  of  your investment into periods between in-flows,
       out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each  period
       and  then a compound rate of return.  However, internal workings of TWR
       are quite different.

       TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit  fund"  where  in-
       flows/  out-flows  lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment
       and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit".  Change
       in  "unit  price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of
       your investment.

       References:

       o Explanation of rate of return

       o Explanation of IRR

       o Explanation of TWR

       o Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of  the  limitations
         of both metrics

   stats
       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 also supports output destination and output format  selec-
       tion.

   tags
       tags
       List the tags used in the journal, or their values.

       This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on trans-
       actions, postings, or account declarations.

       With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular  expres-
       sion (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown.

       With  QUERY  arguments,  only  transactions  and accounts matching this
       query are considered.  If the query involves transaction fields (date:,
       desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions
       and their accounts.

       With the --values flag, the tags' unique non-empty  values  are  listed
       instead.  With -E/--empty, blank/empty values are also shown.

       With  --parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed,
       with duplicates included.  (Except, tags from account declarations  are
       always shown first.)

       Tip:  remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, postings
       also acquire tags from their account and transaction, transactions also
       acquire tags from their postings.

   test
       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).

   Add-on commands
       Add-on commands are programs or scripts in your PATH

       o whose name starts with hledger-

       o whose  name  ends  with  a recognised file extension: .bat,.com,.exe,
         .hs,.lhs,.pl,.py,.rb,.rkt,.sh or none

       o and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user.

       Add-ons are a relatively easy way to add local features  or  experiment
       with  new  ideas.   They  can  be  written in any language, but haskell
       scripts have a big advantage: they can use  the  same  hledger  library
       functions  that built-in commands use for command-line options, parsing
       and reporting.  Some experimental/example add-on scripts can  be  found
       in the hledger repo's bin/ directory.

       Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a double
       dash (--) preceding them.  Eg you must write:

              $ hledger web -- --serve

       and not:

              $ hledger web --serve

       (because the --serve flag belongs to hledger-web, not hledger).

       The -h/--help and --version flags don't require --.

       If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the add-
       on program directly, eg:

              $ hledger-web --serve

JOURNAL FORMAT
       hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal.

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

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

       You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use
       the add or web or import commands to create and update it.

       Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and track
       changes  with a version control system such as git.  Editor addons such
       as ledger-mode or hledger-mode  for  Emacs,  vim-ledger  for  Vim,  and
       hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour,
       formatting, tab completion, and useful commands.  See Editor configura-
       tion at hledger.org for the full list.

       Here's  a  description  of  each part of the file format (and hledger's
       data model).  These are mostly in the order you'll  use  them,  but  in
       some  cases related concepts have been grouped together for easy refer-
       ence, or linked before they are introduced, so feel free to  skip  over
       anything that looks unnecessary right now.

   Transactions
       Transactions  are the main unit of information in a journal file.  They
       represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of  commodities
       between two or more named accounts.

       Each  transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a sim-
       ple date in column 0.  This can be followed by  any  of  the  following
       optional fields, separated by spaces:

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

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

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

       o a  comment  (any  remaining  text  following a semicolon until end of
         line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon)

       o 0 or more indented posting lines, describing what was transferred and
         the  accounts  involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, but
         not blank lines or non-indented lines).

       Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction:

              2008/01/01 income
                assets:bank:checking   $1
                income:salary         $-1

   Dates
   Simple dates
       Dates in the journal  file  use  simple  dates  format:  YYYY-MM-DD  or
       YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, with leading zeros optional.  The year may be
       omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context:  the  cur-
       rent  transaction,  the default year set with a default year 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.)

   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, for more accurate daily balances, you  can  specify
       individual posting dates.

       Or,  you can use the older secondary date feature (Ledger calls it aux-
       iliary date or effective date).  Note: we support this for  compatibil-
       ity,  but  I usually recommend avoiding this feature; posting dates are
       almost always clearer and simpler.

       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", as shown here:

              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

   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.

   Code
       After the status mark, but before the description, you  can  optionally
       write  a  transaction  "code", enclosed in parentheses.  This is a good
       place to record a check number, or some other important transaction  id
       or reference number.

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

   Payee and note
       You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to sub-
       divide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the
       left  (up  to  the  first  |) and an additional note field on the right
       (after the first |).  This may be worthwhile if you  need  to  do  more
       precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note.

   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
              ; another file comment
              * also a file comment, useful in org/orgstruct mode

              comment
              A multiline file comment, which continues
              until a line containing just "end comment"
              (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.

   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.

   Virtual postings
       A posting with a parenthesised account name is called a virtual posting
       or unbalanced posting, which means it is exempt  from  the  usual  rule
       that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero.

       This  is  not  part  of double entry accounting, so you might choose to
       avoid this feature.  Or you can use it sparingly  for  certain  special
       cases  where  it can be convenient.  Eg, you could set opening balances
       without using a balancing equity account:

              1/1 opening balances
                (assets:checking)   $1000
                (assets:savings)    $2000

       A posting with a bracketed account name is called  a  balanced  virtual
       posting.  The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must add up to
       zero (separately from other postings).  Eg:

              1/1 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else
                assets:cash                    $-10 ; <- these balance
                expenses:food                    $7 ; <-
                expenses:food                    $3 ; <-
                [assets:checking:budget:food]  $-10    ; <- and these balance
                [assets:checking:available]     $10    ; <-
                (something:else)                 $5       ; <- not required to balance

       Ordinary non-parenthesised,  non-bracketed  postings  are  called  real
       postings.   You  can  exclude  virtual  postings  from reports with the
       -R/--real flag or real:1 query.

   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, revenue, 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.)

       hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting  several  international
       formats.   Here  are  some examples.  Amounts have a number (the "quan-
       tity"):

              1

       ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this below),
       to  the  left  or  right  of the quantity, with or without a separating
       space:

              $1
              4000 AAPL
              3 "green apples"

       Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is
       the  default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side com-
       modity symbol:

              -$1
              $-1

       One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable  when
       parsing (but they won't be displayed in output):

              + $1
              $-      1

       Scientific E notation is allowed:

              1E-6
              EUR 1E3

   Decimal marks, digit group marks
       A decimal mark can be written as a period or a comma:

              1.23
              1,23456780000009

       In  the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups
       of digits can optionally be separated by a digit group mark - a  space,
       comma, or period (different from the decimal mark):

                   $1,000,000.00
                EUR 2.000.000,00
              INR 9,99,99,999.00
                    1 000 000.9455

       Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal mark
       is ambiguous.  Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ?

              1,000
              1.000

       If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of  the  above
       are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1.

       To  prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, especially
       if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands separators),  we
       recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark character in each jour-
       nal file, using a directive at the top of the file.   The  decimal-mark
       directive  is  best,  otherwise  commodity  directives  will also work.
       These are described detail below.

   Commodity
       Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is  a  signed  decimal
       number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or
       any word or phrase describing something you are tracking.

       If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or punctu-
       ation),  you must always write it inside double quotes ("green apples",
       "ABC123").

       If you write just a bare number, that too will have a  commodity,  with
       name ""; we call that the "no-symbol commodity".

       Actually,  hledger  combines  these  single-commodity amounts into more
       powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most  of
       the  time.   A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: 1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456
       TSLA.  In practice,  you  will  only  see  multi-commodity  amounts  in
       hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file.

       (If  you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these
       are the Amount and MixedAmount types.)

   Directives influencing number parsing and display
       You can add decimal-mark and commodity directives to  the  journal,  to
       declare  and control these things more explicitly and precisely.  These
       are described  below,  in  JOURNAL  FORMAT  ->  Declaring  commodities.
       Here's a quick example:

              # the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities)
              decimal-mark .

              # display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities:
              commodity $1,000.00
              commodity EUR 1.000,00
              commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00
              commodity 1 000 000.9455


   Commodity display style
       For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display
       style to use in most reports.   (Exceptions:  price  amounts,  and  all
       amounts displayed by the print command, are displayed with all of their
       decimal digits visible.)

       A commodity's display style is inferred as follows.

       First, if a default commodity is declared with D,  this  commodity  and
       its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal.

       Then  each  commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in
       order of preference:

       o The commodity directive for that commodity (including  the  no-symbol
         commodity), if any.

       o The  amounts  in  that  commodity seen in the journal's transactions.
         (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are ignored,
         currently.)

       o The  built-in fallback style, which looks like this: $1000.00.  (Sym-
         bol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.)

       A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows:

       o Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of  the  first
         amount

       o Use  the  first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group
         sizes), if any

       o Use the maximum number of decimal places of all.

       Transaction price amounts don't  affect  the  commodity  display  style
       directly,  but  occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a post-
       ing's amount is inferred using a transaction price).  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.

   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").   (Guaranteed since hledger 1.17.1; in older versions
       this could vary if hledger was built with Decimal < 0.5.1.)

   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     EUR100 @ $1.35  ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each
                    assets:dollars                 ; balancing amount is -$135.00

       2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount:

                  2009/1/1
                    assets:euros     EUR100 @@ $135  ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot
                    assets:dollars

       3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and
          let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction:

                  2009/1/1
                    assets:euros     EUR100          ; one hundred euros purchased
                    assets:dollars  $-135          ; for $135

       4. Like  1, but the @ is parenthesised, i.e.  (@); this is for compati-
          bility with Ledger journals (Virtual posting costs), and is  equiva-
          lent to 1 in hledger.

       5. Like 2, but as in 4 the @@ is parenthesised, i.e.  (@@); in hledger,
          this is equivalent to 2.

       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
                              EUR100  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     EUR100              ; for 100 euros

              $ hledger bal -N --flat -B
                             EUR-100  assets:dollars  # <- the dollars' selling price
                              EUR100  assets:euros

   Equity conversion postings
       Transaction prices can be converted to and from equity conversion post-
       ings using the --infer-equity and --infer-costs flags.

       With --infer-equity, hledger will add equity postings  to  balance  out
       any transaction prices.

              2009/1/1
                assets:euros     EUR100 @ $1.35      ; 100 euros bought
                assets:dollars  -$135              ; for $135

              $ hledger print --infer-equity

              2009-01-01
                  assets:euros               EUR100 @ $1.35  ; 100 euros bought
                  equity:conversion:$-EUR:EUR           EUR-100  ; 100 euros bought, generated-posting:
                  equity:conversion:$-EUR:$         $135.00  ; 100 euros bought, generated-posting:
                  assets:dollars                    $-135  ; for $135

       The  reverse  is  possible  using  --infer-costs,  which will check any
       equity conversion postings and generate a  transaction  price  for  the
       first non-conversion posting which matches.

              2009-01-01
                  assets:euros                       EUR100  ; 100 euros bought
                  equity:conversion                 EUR-100
                  equity:conversion                  $135
                  assets:dollars                    $-135  ; for $135

              $ hledger print --infer-costs

              2009-01-01
                  assets:euros               EUR100 @@ $135  ; 100 euros bought
                  equity:conversion                 EUR-100
                  equity:conversion                  $135
                  assets:dollars                    $-135  ; for $135

       Note  that  the  above  will  assign the transaction price to the first
       matching posting in the transaction.  If you want to  assign  it  to  a
       different  posting, or if you have several different sets of conversion
       postings which must match different postings, you must manually specify
       the transaction price.  If you do this, equity conversion postings must
       occur in adjacent pairs and must exactly match the amount of a non-con-
       version posting.

              2009-01-01
                  assets:dollars                    $-135  ; $135 paid
                  equity:conversion                 EUR-100
                  equity:conversion                  $135
                  assets:euros               EUR100 @@ $135  ; to buy 100 euros

              2009-01-01
                  assets:euros               EUR100 @ $1.35  ; 100 euros bought
                  equity:conversion                 EUR-100
                  equity:conversion                  $135
                  assets:pounds               80 @@ $100  ; 80 pounds bought
                  equity:conversion                  -80
                  equity:conversion                  $100
                  assets:dollars                    $-235  ; for $235 total

       The  account names used for the conversion accounts can be changed with
       the conversion account type declaration.

   Lot prices, lot dates
       Ledger allows another kind of price, lot price (four  variants:  {UNIT-
       PRICE},   {{TOTALPRICE}},   {=FIXEDUNITPRICE},   {{=FIXEDTOTALPRICE}}),
       and/or a lot date ([DATE]) to be specified.  These are normally used to
       select  a  lot when selling investments.  hledger will parse these, for
       compatibility with Ledger journals,  but  currently  ignores  them.   A
       transaction  price,  lot price and/or lot date may appear in any order,
       after the posting amount and before the balance assertion if any.

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

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

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

       After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions
       and report an error if any of them fail.  Balance assertions  can  pro-
       tect  you  from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while
       cleaning up old entries.  You can disable  them  temporarily  with  the
       -I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or
       for reading Ledger files.  (Note: this flag currently does not  disable
       balance assignments, below).

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

       So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently-
       dated transactions within the journal.  But if you  reorder  same-dated
       transactions  or postings, assertions might break and require updating.
       This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise control over the
       order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra-
       day balances.

   Assertions and multiple included files
       Multiple files included with the include directive are processed as  if
       concatenated  into  one  file,  preserving  their order and the posting
       order within each file.  It means  that  balance  assertions  in  later
       files will see balance from earlier files.

       And  if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, split
       across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's balance  on
       that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file - the last
       one in the sequence, probably.

   Assertions and multiple -f files
       Unlike include, when multiple files are specified on the  command  line
       with  multiple  -f/--file options, balance assertions will not see bal-
       ance from earlier files.  This can be useful when you do not want prob-
       lems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files.

       If  you  do  want  assertions  to  see  balance from earlier files, use
       include, or concatenate the files temporarily.

   Assertions and commodities
       The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount,  and  in
       fact  the  assertion  checks  only  this commodity's balance within the
       (possibly multi-commodity) account balance.   This  is  how  assertions
       work in Ledger also.  We could call this a "partial" balance assertion.

       To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can
       write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance.

       You  can  make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double
       equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE).  This asserts that there are no other
       commodities  in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, that
       their balance is 0).

              2013/1/1
                a   $1
                a    1EUR
                b  $-1
                c   -1EUR

              2013/1/2  ; These assertions succeed
                a    0  =  $1
                a    0  =   1EUR
                b    0 == $-1
                c    0 ==  -1EUR

              2013/1/3  ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1EUR
                a    0 ==  $1

       It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that
       has  multiple commodities.  One workaround is to isolate each commodity
       into its own subaccount:

              2013/1/1
                a:usd   $1
                a:euro   1EUR
                b

              2013/1/2
                a        0 ==  0
                a:usd    0 == $1
                a:euro   0 ==  1EUR

   Assertions and prices
       Balance assertions ignore transaction prices, and  should  normally  be
       written without one:

              2019/1/1
                (a)     $1 @ EUR1 = $1

       We  do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them,
       even though they don't affect whether the assertion  passes  or  fails.
       This  is  for  backward  compatibility (hledger's close command used to
       generate balance assertions with prices), and because  balance  assign-
       ments do use them (see below).

   Assertions and subaccounts
       The  balance  assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from
       subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only.  You  can
       assert the balance including subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg:

              2019/1/1
                equity:opening balances
                checking:a       5
                checking:b       5
                checking         1  ==* 11

   Assertions and virtual postings
       Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they
       are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query.

   Assertions and auto postings
       Balance assertions are affected by the  --auto  flag,  which  generates
       auto postings, which can alter account balances.  Because auto postings
       are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two
       balances.   But  balance  assertions  can only test one or the other of
       these.  So to avoid making fragile assertions, either:

       o assert the balance calculated with --auto, and always use --auto with
         that file

       o or assert the balance calculated without --auto, and never use --auto
         with that file

       o or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings (or
         avoid auto postings entirely).

   Assertions and precision
       Balance  assertions  compare  the exactly calculated amounts, which are
       not always what is shown by reports.   Eg  a  commodity  directive  may
       limit  the  display  precision, but this will not affect balance asser-
       tions.  Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts.

   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.

   Balance assignments and prices
       A  transaction  price in a balance assignment will cause the calculated
       amount to have that price attached:

              2019/1/1
                (a)             = $1 @ EUR2

              $ hledger print --explicit
              2019-01-01
                  (a)         $1 @ EUR2 = $1 @ EUR2

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

       o subdirective  -  Some  directives  support   subdirectives,   written
         indented below the parent directive.

       o decimal  mark  - The character to interpret as a decimal mark (period
         or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity.

       o display style - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: sym-
         bol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of deci-
         mal places.

       Directives are not required when starting out  with  hledger,  but  you
       will  probably  add  some  as  your needs grow.  Here is an overview of
       directives by purpose:


       purpose                           directives               command      line
                                                                  options with sim-
                                                                  ilar effect
       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
       READING/GENERATING DATA:
       Declare a commodity's or file's   commodity, D, decimal-
       decimal   mark  to  help  parse   mark
       amounts accurately
       Apply changes to the data while   alias, apply  account,   --alias
       parsing                           comment, D, Y
       Inline extra data files           include                  multiple
                                                                  -f/--file's
       Generate extra transactions  or   ~
       budget goals
       Generate extra postings           =
       CHECKING FOR ERRORS:
       Define  valid entities to allow   account,    commodity,
       stricter error checking           payee
       DISPLAYING REPORTS:
       Declare accounts' display order   account
       and accounting type
       Declare    commodity    display   commodity, D             -c/--commodity-
       styles                                                     style

       And here are all the directives and their precise effects:


       direc-     effects                                                         ends
       tive                                                                       at
                                                                                  file
                                                                                  end?
       ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       account    Declares an account, for checking all entries in  all  files;
                  and  its display order and type, for reports.  Subdirectives:
                  any text, ignored.
       alias      Rewrites account names, in following  entries  until  end  of   Y
                  current file or end aliases.
       apply      Prepends  a  common  parent  account to all account names, in   Y
       account    following entries until end of  current  file  or  end  apply
                  account.
       comment    Ignores part of the journal file, until end of  current  file   Y
                  or end comment.
       commod-    Declares a commodity, for checking all entries in all  files;   N, Y
       ity        the  decimal  mark for parsing amounts of this commodity, for
                  following entries until end of current file; and its  display
                  style, for reports.  Takes precedence over D.  Subdirectives:
                  format (alternate syntax).
       D          Sets  a  default  commodity to use for no-symbol amounts, and   Y
                  its decimal mark for parsing amounts  of  this  commodity  in
                  following  entries until end of current file; and its display
                  style, for reports.
       deci-      Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts  of  all  com-   Y
       mal-       modities  in following entries until next decimal-mark or end
       mark       of current file.  Included files can override.  Takes  prece-
                  dence over commodity and D.
       include    Includes entries and directives from another file, as if they
                  were written inline.
       payee      Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files.
       P          Declares a market price for a commodity  on  some  date,  for
                  valuation reports.
       Y          Declares  a  year  for  yearless dates, for following entries   Y
                  until end of current file.
       ~          Declares a periodic transaction rule  that  generates  future
       (tilde)    transactions  with  --forecast  and budget goals with balance
                  --budget.
       =          Declares an auto posting rule that generates  extra  postings   partly
       (equals)   on  matched transactions with --auto, in current, parent, and
                  child files (but not sibling files, see #1212).

   Directives and multiple files
       If  you  use  multiple  -f/--file  options,  or  the include directive,
       hledger will process multiple input files.  But directives which affect
       input  typically  have  effect  only until the end of the file in which
       they occur (and on any included files in that region).

       This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports sta-
       ble  and  deterministic,  independent of the order of input.  Otherwise
       you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options  in
       a  different  order,  or if you moved includes around while cleaning up
       your files.

       It can be surprising though; for example, it means  that  alias  direc-
       tives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below).

   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 FILEPATH

       Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or  timedot
       files can be included (not CSV files, currently).

       If  the  file  path  does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the
       current file's folder.

       A tilde means home directory, eg: include ~/main.journal.

       The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: include
       *.journal.

       There  is  limited  support  for recursive wildcards: **/ (the slash is
       required) matches 0 or more subdirectories.  It's not super  convenient
       since  you  have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but
       this can be done, eg: include */**/*.journal.

       The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, overrid-
       ing  the  file  extension  (as  described in hledger.1 -> Input files):
       include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md.

   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 payees
       The payee 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

   Declaring the decimal mark
       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).

   Declaring commodities
       You  can use commodity directives to declare your commodities.  In fact
       the commodity directive performs several functions at once:

       1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal.  This  can
          optionally  be  enforced, providing useful error checking.  (Cf Com-
          modity error checking)

       2. It declares which decimal  mark  character  (period  or  comma),  to
          expect  when  parsing  input  - useful to disambiguate international
          number formats in your data.  Without this, hledger will parse  both
          1,000 and 1.000 as 1.  (Cf Amounts)

       3. It  declares  how  to render the commodity's amounts when displaying
          output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of dec-
          imal  places,  symbol  placement  and  so on.  (Cf Commodity display
          style)

       You will run into one of the problems solved  by  commodity  directives
       sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable
       parsing and display.

       Generally you should put them at the top of your  journal  file  (since
       for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793).

       A  commodity  directive is just the word commodity followed by a sample
       amount, like this:

              ;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT

              commodity $1000.00
              commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA  ; optional same-line comment

       It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the format  subdirec-
       tive,  as  in  Ledger.   Note in this case the commodity symbol appears
       twice; it must be the same in both places:

              ;commodity SYMBOL
              ;  format SAMPLEAMOUNT

              ; display indian rupees with currency name on the left,
              ; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated,
              ; period as decimal point, and two decimal places.
              commodity INR
                format INR 1,00,00,000.00

       Remember that if the commodity  symbol  contains  spaces,  numbers,  or
       punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity).

       The  amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is significant.
       It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a comma -  followed
       by 0 or more decimal digits.

       A few more examples:

              # number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity:
              commodity $1,000.00
              commodity EUR 1.000,00
              commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0
              commodity 1 000 000.

       Note  hledger  normally  uses  banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with
       zero decimal digits is "0".  (More at Commodity display style.)

       Even in the presence of commodity  directives,  the  commodity  display
       style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option.

   Commodity error checking
       In  strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report
       an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared by  a
       commodity  directive.   This works similarly to account error checking,
       see the notes there for more details.

       Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol,  because  cur-
       rently  it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity with
       a directive.  This is one exception for convenience: zero  amounts  are
       always allowed to have no commodity symbol.

   Default commodity
       The D directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any subsequent
       commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing the  jour-
       nal.   This  effect lasts until the next D directive, or the end of the
       journal.

       For compatibility/historical reasons, D  also  acts  like  a  commodity
       directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing and display
       style for output).

       The syntax is D AMOUNT.  As with commodity, 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

       If both commodity and D directives are found for a commodity, commodity
       takes precedence for setting decimal mark and display style.

       If you are using D and also checking commodities, you will need to  add
       a commodity directive similar to the D.  (The hledger check commodities
       command expects commodity directives, and ignores D).

   Declaring 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.

       The format is:

              P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT

       DATE  is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the commodity
       being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and  quantity)
       of  commodity  2  that  one  unit of commodity 1 is worth on this date.
       Examples:

              # one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward:
              P 2009-01-01 EUR $1.35

              # and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward:
              P 2010-01-01 EUR $1.40

       The -V, -X and --value flags use these market  prices  to  show  amount
       values in another commodity.  See Valuation.

   Declaring accounts
       account directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places that
       amounts are transferred from and to).  Though not required, these  dec-
       larations can provide several benefits:

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

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

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

       o They  can  store  other  account  information, as comments or as tags
         which can be used to filter reports.

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

       o In  strict  mode,  they  restrict  which accounts may be posted to by
         transactions, which helps detect typos.

       The simplest form is just the word account followed by a  hledger-style
       account name, eg this account directive declares the assets:bank:check-
       ing account:

              account assets:bank:checking

   Account error checking
       By default, accounts come into existence when a transaction  references
       them  by name.  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
       the  error  later, as an extra account in balance reports, or an incor-
       rect balance when reconciling.

       In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will  report
       an  error  if  any  transaction  uses an account name that has not been
       declared by an account directive.  Some notes:

       o The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the  correct
         account name capitalisation.

       o The  account  directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see direc-
         tives).  This means it affects all of the current file, and any files
         it  includes,  but  not  parent  or  sibling  files.  The position of
         account directives within the file does not matter, though it's usual
         to put them at the top.

       o Accounts  can  only  be  declared  in  journal files (but will affect
         included files in other formats).

       o It's currently not possible to  declare  "all  possible  subaccounts"
         with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared.

   Account comments
       Comments, beginning with a semicolon, can be added:

       o on  the  same line, after two or more spaces (because ; is allowed in
         account names)

       o on the next lines, indented

       An example of both:

              account assets:bank:checking    ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces required before ;
                ; next-line comment
                ; some tags, type:A, acctnum:12345

       Compatibility note: same-line comments are not supported by  Ledger  or
       hledger <1.13.

   Account subdirectives
       We  also  allow  (and ignore) Ledger-style indented subdirectives, just
       for compatibility.:

              account assets:bank:checking
                format blah blah  ; <- subdirective, ignored

       Here is the full syntax of account directives:

              account ACCTNAME  [;type:ACCTTYPE] [COMMENT]
                [;COMMENTS]
                [LEDGER-STYLE SUBDIRECTIVES, IGNORED]

   Account types
       hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities,
       expenses  and  so  on.  This enables easy reports like balancesheet and
       incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the type: query.

       As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types automatically
       if  you  are  using  common  english-language  top-level  account names
       (described below).   But  generally  we  recommend  you  declare  types
       explicitly, by adding a type: tag to your top-level account directives.
       Subaccounts will inherit the type of their  parent.   The  tag's  value
       should be one of the five main account types:

       o A or Asset (things you own)

       o L or Liability (things you owe)

       o E  or  Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets &
         liabilities)

       o R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA  income;  technically
         part of Equity)

       o X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity)

       or, it can be (these are used less often):

       o C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cash-
         flow report)

       o V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see CONVERSION
         & COST).)

       Here is a typical set of account type declarations:

              account assets             ; type: A
              account liabilities        ; type: L
              account equity             ; type: E
              account revenues           ; type: R
              account expenses           ; type: X

              account assets:bank        ; type: C
              account assets:cash        ; type: C

              account equity:conversion  ; type: V

       Here are some tips for working with account types.

       o The  rules  for  inferring  types  from account names are as follows.
         These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get going;
         if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare your account
         types.  See also Regular expressions.  Note the Cash  regexp  changed
         in hledger 1.24.99.2.

                If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression:            | its type is:
                --------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------
                ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash
                ^assets?(:|$)                                                       | Asset
                ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$)                                      | Liability
                ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$)                             | Conversion
                ^equity(:|$)                                                        | Equity
                ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$)                                            | Revenue
                ^expenses?(:|$)                                                     | Expense

       o If  you  declare  any  account  types, it's a good idea to declare an
         account for each of them, because a mixture  of  declared  and  name-
         inferred types can disrupt certain reports.

       o Certain  uses  of  account  aliases  can  disrupt account types.  See
         Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types.

       o As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent
         account.   More  precisely, an account's type is decided by the first
         of these that exists:

         1. A type: declaration for this account.

         2. A type: declaration in the parent accounts  above  it,  preferring
            the nearest.

         3. An account type inferred from this account's name.

         4. An  account type inferred from a parent account's name, preferring
            the nearest parent.

         5. Otherwise, it will have no type.

       o For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with:

                $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES]

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

              account assets
              account liabilities
              account equity
              account revenues
              account expenses

       you'll see those accounts displayed in declaration order, not alphabet-
       ically:

              $ 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:

       o you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account  other  above)
         that  you  don't  intend  to post to, just to customize their display
         order

       o sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y  in  between
         a:b and a:c).

   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

       o combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference on
         one line

       o customising reports

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

       Account aliases are very powerful.  They are generally easy to use cor-
       rectly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; more
       on this below.

       See also Rewrite account names.

   Basic aliases
       To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal  file.
       This  affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its
       included files (but note: not sibling or  parent  files).   The  spaces
       around the = are optional:

              alias OLD = NEW

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

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

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

   Regex aliases
       There  is  also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression,
       indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward  slashes.   (This  is  the
       only  place  where  hledger  requires  forward slashes around a regular
       expression.)

       Eg:

              alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT

       or:

              $ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ...

       Any part of an account name  matched  by  REGEX  will  be  replaced  by
       REPLACEMENT.  REGEX is case-insensitive as usual.

       If  you  need  to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg
       /\/=:.

       If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can  be  referenced
       by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT:

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

       REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end of
       option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace.

   Combining aliases
       You can define as many aliases as you like,  using  journal  directives
       and/or command line options.

       Recursive  aliases  -  where an account name is rewritten by one alias,
       then by another alias, and so on - are allowed.  Each  alias  sees  the
       effect of previously applied aliases.

       In  such  cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be
       applied and in which order.  For (each account name  in)  each  journal
       entry, we apply:

       1. alias  directives  preceding the journal entry, most recently parsed
          first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to top)

       2. --alias options, in the order they  appeared  on  the  command  line
          (left to right).

       In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry:

       o the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied first

       o the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on

       o aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it.

       This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps  pro-
       vide  semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way inde-
       pendent of which files are being read and in which order.

       In case of trouble, adding --debug=6 to  the  command  line  will  show
       which aliases are being applied when.

   Aliases and multiple files
       As  explained at Directives and multiple files, alias directives do not
       affect parent or sibling files.  Eg in this command,

              hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal

       account  aliases  defined  in  a.aliases  will  not  affect  b.journal.
       Including the aliases doesn't work either:

              include a.aliases

              2020-01-01  ; not affected by a.aliases
                foo  1
                bar

       This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the start
       of your top-most file, like this:

              alias foo=Foo
              alias bar=Bar

              2020-01-01  ; affected by aliases above
                foo  1
                bar

              include c.journal  ; also affected

   end aliases
       You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the jour-
       nal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive:

              end aliases

   Aliases can generate bad account names
       Be  aware  that  account  aliases  can produce malformed account names,
       which could cause confusing reports or invalid print output.  For exam-
       ple, you could erase all account names:

              2021-01-01
                a:aa     1
                b

              $ hledger print --alias '/.*/='
              2021-01-01
                                 1

       The  above print output is not a valid journal.  Or you could insert an
       illegal double space, causing print output that would give a  different
       journal when reparsed:

              2021-01-01
                old    1
                other

              $ hledger print --alias old="new  USD" | hledger -f- print
              2021-01-01
                  new             USD 1
                  other

   Aliases and account types
       If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account
       types) is renamed by an alias, normally the  account  type  remains  in
       effect.

       However,  renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg renaming
       parent accounts but not their children, or vice  versa)  could  prevent
       child accounts from inheriting the account type of their parents.

       Secondly,  if an account's type is being inferred from its name, renam-
       ing it by an alias could prevent or alter that.

       If you are using account aliases and the type: query  is  not  matching
       accounts  as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts command,
       eg something like:

              $ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a

   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 hledger to generate temporary future transactions  to  help  with
       forecasting,  so  you  don't have to write out each one in the journal,
       and it's easy to try out different forecasts.

       Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you  use  them,
       read this whole section - or at least these tips:

       1. Two  spaces  accidentally  added or omitted will cause you trouble -
          read about this below.

       2. For troubleshooting, show the generated  transactions  with  hledger
          print   --forecast  tag:generated  or  hledger  register  --forecast
          tag:generated.

       3. Forecasted transactions will begin only  after  the  last  non-fore-
          casted transaction's date.

       4. Forecasted  transactions  will  end 6 months from today, by default.
          See below for the exact start/end rules.

       5. period  expressions  can  be  tricky.   Their  documentation   needs
          improvement, but is worth studying.

       6. Some  period  expressions  with a repeating interval must begin on a
          natural boundary of that interval.  Eg in  weekly  from  DATE,  DATE
          must  be a monday.  ~ weekly from 2019/10/1 (a tuesday) will give an
          error.

       7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically expanded
          to  cover a whole number of that interval.  (This is done to improve
          reports, but it also affects periodic transactions.  Yes, it's a bit
          inconsistent  with  the  above.)  Eg: ~ every 10th day of month from
          2020/01, which is equivalent to ~  every  10th  day  of  month  from
          2020/01/01, will be adjusted to start on 2019/12/10.

       Periodic transaction rules also have a second meaning: they are used to
       define budget goals, shown in budget reports.

   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.):

              ~ 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.

   Periodic rules and relative dates
       Partial or relative dates (like 12/31, 25, tomorrow,  last  week,  next
       quarter)  are  usually  not  recommended  in  periodic rules, since the
       results will change as time passes.  If used, they will be  interpreted
       relative to, in order of preference:

       1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent Y directive

       2. or the date specified with --today

       3. or the date on which you are running the report.

       They  will  not  be affected at all by report period or forecast period
       dates.

   Two spaces between period expression and description!
       If the period expression is  followed  by  a  transaction  description,
       these must be separated by two or more spaces.  This helps hledger know
       where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not acciden-
       tally alter their meaning, as in this example:

              ; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020"
              ;               ||
              ;               vv
              ~ every 2 months  in 2020, we will review
                  assets:bank:checking   $1500
                  income:acme inc

       So,

       o Do  write two spaces between your period expression and your transac-
         tion description, if any.

       o Don't accidentally write two spaces in  the  middle  of  your  period
         expression.

   Forecasting with periodic transactions
       The  --forecast  flag  activates  any periodic transaction rules in the
       journal.  These will generate temporary additional  transactions,  usu-
       ally  recurring  and  in  the future, which will appear in all reports.
       hledger print --forecast is a good way to see them.

       This can be useful for estimating balances  into  the  future,  perhaps
       experimenting with different scenarios.

       It  could  also  be  useful for scripted data entry: you could describe
       recurring transactions, and every so often copy  the  output  of  print
       --forecast into the journal.

       The  generated  transactions  will  have  an extra tag, like generated-
       transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR, indicating which  periodic  rule  generated
       them.   There  is also a similar, hidden tag, named _generated-transac-
       tion:, which you can use to reliably match transactions generated "just
       now" (rather than printed in the past).

       The forecast transactions are generated within a forecast period, which
       is independent of the report period.  (Forecast period sets the  bounds
       for  generated  transactions, report period controls which transactions
       are reported.) The forecast period begins on:

       o the start date provided within --forecast's argument, if any

       o otherwise, the later of

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

         o the day after the latest ordinary transaction in  the  journal,  if
           any

       o otherwise today.

       It ends on:

       o the end date provided within --forecast's argument, if any

       o otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with -e/-p/date:)

       o otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today.

       Note,  this  means  that  ordinary  transactions will suppress periodic
       transactions, by default; the  periodic  transactions  will  not  start
       until after the last ordinary transaction.  This is usually convenient,
       but you can get around it in two ways:

       o If you need to record some transactions  in  the  future,  make  them
         periodic  transactions  (with  a single occurrence, eg: ~ YYYY-MM-DD)
         rather than ordinary transactions.   That  way  they  won't  suppress
         other periodic transactions.

       o Or  give  --forecast a period expression argument.  A forecast period
         specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and need not be
         in the future.  Some things to note:

         o You must use = between flag and argument; a space won't work.

         o The period expression can specify the forecast period's start date,
           end date, or both.  See also Report start & end date.

         o The period expression should not specify a report interval.   (Each
           periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.)

       Some   examples:   --forecast=202001-202004,  --forecast=jan-,  --fore-
       cast=2021.

   Budgeting with 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.

       See also: Budgeting and Forecasting.


   Auto postings
       "Automated  postings"  or  "auto postings" are extra postings which get
       added  automatically  to  transactions  which  match  certain  queries,
       defined by "auto posting rules", when you use the --auto flag.

       An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction:

              = QUERY
                  ACCOUNT  AMOUNT
                  ...
                  ACCOUNT  [AMOUNT]

       except  the  first  line is an equals sign (mnemonic: = suggests match-
       ing), followed by a query (which matches existing postings),  and  each
       "posting"  line  describes  a  posting to be generated, and the posting
       amounts can be:

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

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

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

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

       Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single  or  double
       quotes,  as on the command line.  Eg, note the quotes around the second
       query term below:

              = expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out'
                  (budget:funds:dining out)                 *-1

       Some examples:

              ; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation
              = expenses:food
                  (liabilities:charity)   $-1

              ; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount
              = expenses:gifts
                  assets:checking:gifts  *-1
                  assets:checking         *1

              2017/12/1
                expenses:food    $10
                assets:checking

              2017/12/14
                expenses:gifts   $20
                assets:checking

              $ hledger print --auto
              2017-12-01
                  expenses:food              $10
                  assets:checking
                  (liabilities:charity)      $-1

              2017-12-14
                  expenses:gifts             $20
                  assets:checking
                  assets:checking:gifts     -$20
                  assets:checking            $20

   Auto postings and multiple files
       An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or
       in  any  parent file or child file.  Note, currently it will not affect
       sibling files (when multiple -f/--file are used - see #1212).

   Auto postings and dates
       A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting,  or  (taking
       precedence)  a  posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also
       be used in the generated posting.

   Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance asser-
       tions
       Currently, auto postings are added:

       o after  missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked for
         balancedness,

       o but before balance assertions are checked.

       Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both  before  and
       after auto postings are added.  This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893
       for background.

       This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with  a
       missing  amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to
       infer amounts.

   Auto posting tags
       Automated postings will have some extra tags:

       o generated-posting:= QUERY - shows this was generated by an auto post-
         ing rule, and the query

       o _generated-posting:=  QUERY  - a hidden tag, which does not appear in
         hledger's output.  This can be used to match postings generated "just
         now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the journal.

       Also,  any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules will
       have these tags added:

       o modified: - this transaction was modified

       o _modified: - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this transac-
         tion was modified "just now".

CSV FORMAT
       How hledger reads CSV data, and the CSV rules file format.

       hledger  can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma,
       semicolon, or tab) containing dated records as  if  they  were  journal
       files, automatically converting each CSV record into a transaction.

       (To learn about writing CSV, see CSV output.)

       We describe each CSV file's format with a corresponding rules file.  By
       default this is named like the CSV file with a .rules extension  added.
       Eg  when reading FILE.csv, hledger also looks for FILE.csv.rules in the
       same directory as FILE.csv.  You can specify  a  different  rules  file
       with  the  --rules-file  option.  If a rules file is not found, hledger
       will create a sample rules file, which you'll need to adjust.

       This file contains rules describing the CSV data (header  line,  fields
       layout, date format etc.), and how to construct hledger journal entries
       (transactions) from it.  Often there will also be a list of conditional
       rules  for  categorising  transactions  based  on  their  descriptions.
       Here's an overview of the CSV rules; these  are  described  more  fully
       below, after the examples:


       skip                         skip one or more header lines or matched CSV
                                    records
       fields list                  name CSV  fields,  assign  them  to  hledger
                                    fields
       field assignment             assign  a  value  to one hledger field, with
                                    interpolation
       Field names                  hledger field names, used in the fields list
                                    and field assignments
       separator                    a custom field separator
       if block                     apply  some  rules to CSV records matched by
                                    patterns
       if table                     apply some rules to CSV records  matched  by
                                    patterns, alternate syntax
       end                          skip the remaining CSV records
       date-format                  how to parse dates in CSV records
       decimal-mark                 the  decimal  mark  used  in CSV amounts, if
                                    ambiguous
       newest-first                 disambiguate record order when there's  only
                                    one date
       include                      inline another CSV rules file
       balance-type                 choose  which type of balance assignments to
                                    use

       Note, for best error messages when reading CSV files, use a .csv,  .tsv
       or .ssv file extension or file prefix - see File Extension below.

       There's an introductory Convert CSV files tutorial on hledger.org.

   Examples
       Here  are  some sample hledger CSV rules files.  See also the full col-
       lection at:
       https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv

   Basic
       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

       Default account names are chosen, since we didn't set them.

   Bank of Ireland
       Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and  a  balance
       field,  which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not neces-
       sary but provides extra error checking:

              Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance
              07/12/2012,LODGMENT       529898,,10.0,131.21
              07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126

              # bankofireland-checking.csv.rules

              # skip the header line
              skip

              # name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields
              fields  date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance

              # We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance"
              # above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because:
              #
              # - the CSV balance differs from the true balance,
              #   by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience
              #
              # - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering,
              #   eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day

              # date is in UK/Ireland format
              date-format  %d/%m/%Y

              # set the currency
              currency  EUR

              # set the base account for all txns
              account1  assets:bank:boi:checking

              $ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print
              2012-12-07 LODGMENT       529898
                  assets:bank:boi:checking         EUR10.0 = EUR131.2
                  income:unknown                  EUR-10.0

              2012-12-07 PAYMENT
                  assets:bank:boi:checking         EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0
                  expenses:unknown                  EUR5.0

       The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're  read-
       ing  directly  from  CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are
       imported into a journal file.

   Amazon
       Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to gener-
       ate  a third posting if there's a fee.  (In practice you'd probably get
       this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.)

              "Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID"
              "Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL"
              "Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL"

              # amazon-orders.csv.rules

              # skip one header line
              skip 1

              # name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code.
              # Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion.
              fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code

              # how to parse the date
              date-format %b %-d, %Y

              # combine two fields to make the description
              description %toorfrom %name

              # save the status as a tag
              comment     status:%amzstatus

              # set the base account for all transactions
              account1    assets:amazon
              # leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s).
              # I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember

              # set a generic account2
              account2    expenses:misc
              amount2     %amzamount
              # and maybe refine it further:
              #include categorisation.rules

              # add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero.
              if %fees [1-9]
               account3    expenses:fees
               amount3     %fees

              $ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print
              2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo.  ; status:Completed
                  assets:amazon
                  expenses:misc          $20.00

              2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc.  ; status:Completed
                  assets:amazon
                  expenses:misc          $25.00
                  expenses:fees           $1.00

   Paypal
       Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV,  with  some
       Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included:

              "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note"
              "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99",""
              "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00",""
              "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00",""
              "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00",""
              "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00",""
              "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00",""
              "10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41",""

              # paypal-custom.csv.rules

              # Tips:
              # Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download
              # Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting"
              # Paypal's default fields in 2018 were:
              # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact"
              # This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields":
              # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note"

              fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note

              skip  1

              date-format  %-m/%-d/%Y

              # ignore some paypal events
              if
              In Progress
              Temporary Hold
              Update to
               skip

              # add more fields to the description
              description %description_ %itemtitle

              # save some other fields as tags
              comment  itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_

              # convert to short currency symbols
              if %currency USD
               currency $
              if %currency EUR
               currency E
              if %currency GBP
               currency P

              # generate postings

              # the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account
              # (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields)
              account1 assets:online:paypal
              amount1  %netamount

              # the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party
              # (account2 is set below)
              amount2  -%grossamount

              # if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal.
              if %feeamount [1-9]
               account3 expenses:banking:paypal
               amount3  -%feeamount
               comment3 business:

              # choose an account for the second posting

              # override the default account names:
              # if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit)
              if %grossamount ^[^-]
               account2 income:unknown
              # if negative, it's an expense (a credit)
              if %grossamount ^-
               account2 expenses:unknown

              # apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks
              include common.rules

              # apply some overrides specific to this csv

              # Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending,
              # which can be disregarded in this case.
              if
              Bank Account
              Bank Deposit to PP Account
               description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle
               account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking
               account1 assets:online:paypal

              # Currency conversions
              if Currency Conversion
               account2 equity:currency conversion

              # common.rules

              if
              darcs
              noble benefactor
               account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub
               comment2 business:

              if
              Calm Radio
               account2 expenses:online:apps

              if
              electronic frontier foundation
              Patreon
              wikimedia
              Advent of Code
               account2 expenses:dues

              if Google
               account2 expenses:online:apps
               description google | music

              $ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv  print
              2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month  ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal          $-6.99 = $-6.99
                  expenses:online:apps           $6.99

              2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E  ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending
                  assets:online:paypal               $6.99 = $0.00
                  assets:bank:wf:pchecking          $-6.99

              2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership  ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal          $-7.00 = $-7.00
                  expenses:dues                  $7.00

              2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership  ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending
                  assets:online:paypal               $7.00 = $0.00
                  assets:bank:wf:pchecking          $-7.00

              2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation  ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal             $-2.00 = $-2.00
                  expenses:dues                     $2.00
                  expenses:banking:paypal      ; business:

              2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M  ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending
                  assets:online:paypal               $2.00 = $0.00
                  assets:bank:wf:pchecking          $-2.00

              2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems  ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal                       $9.41 = $9.41
                  revenues:foss donations:darcshub         $-10.00  ; business:
                  expenses:banking:paypal                    $0.59  ; business:

   CSV rules
       The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order.
       Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; are ignored.

   skip
              skip N

       The word "skip" followed by a number (or no number,  meaning  1)  tells
       hledger  to  ignore  this  many non-empty lines preceding the CSV data.
       (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically.) You'll need  this  when-
       ever your CSV data contains header lines.

       It also has a second purpose: it can be used inside if blocks to ignore
       certain CSV records (described below).

   fields list
              fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ...

       A fields list (the word  "fields"  followed  by  comma-separated  field
       names)  is  the quick way to assign CSV field values to hledger fields.
       (The other way is field assignments, see below.)  A  fields  list  does
       does two things:

       1. It  names  the  CSV fields.  This is optional, but can be convenient
          later for interpolating them.

       2. Whenever you use a standard hledger field name (defined below),  the
          CSV value is assigned to that part of the hledger 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

       Tips:

       o The fields list always use commas, even if your CSV data uses another
         separator character.

       o Currently there must be least two items in the  list  (at  least  one
         comma).

       o Field  names may not contain spaces.  Spaces before/after field names
         are optional.

       o Field names may contain _ (underscore) or - (hyphen).

       o If the CSV contains column headings, it's a good idea to  use  these,
         suitably modified, as the basis for your field names (eg lower-cased,
         with underscores instead of spaces).

       o If some heading names match standard hledger fields,  but  you  don't
         want  to  set  the  hledger fields directly, alter those names, eg by
         appending an underscore.

       o Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name (eg: _ ), or no
         name.

   field assignment
              HLEDGERFIELDNAME FIELDVALUE

       Field  assignments  are  the  more flexible way to assign CSV values to
       hledger fields.  They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields
       list (see above).

       To  assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of the
       standard hledger field/pseudo-field names,  defined  below),  a  space,
       followed  by a text value on the same line.  This text value may inter-
       polate CSV fields, referenced by their  1-based  position  in  the  CSV
       record  (%N),  or by the name they were given in the fields list (%CSV-
       FIELDNAME).

       Some examples:

              # set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended
              amount %4 USD

              # combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags
              comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1

       Tips:

       o Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV  value  like  "  1  "
         becomes 1 when interpolated) (#1051).

       o Interpolations  always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate a
         hledger field.  (See Referencing other fields below).

   Field names
       Here are the standard hledger field (and pseudo-field) names, which you
       can  use in a fields list and in field assignments.  For more about the
       transaction parts they refer to, see Transactions.

   date field
       Assigning to date sets the transaction date.

   date2 field
       date2 sets the transaction's secondary date, if any.

   status field
       status sets the transaction's status, if any.

   code field
       code sets the transaction's code, if any.

   description field
       description sets the transaction's description, if any.

   comment field
       comment sets the transaction's comment, if any.

       commentN, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment.

       Tips:

       o You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal \n in the code.
         A comment starting with \n will begin on a new line.

       o Comments can contain tags, as usual.

   account field
       Assigning to accountN, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of the
       Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated.

       Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set  account1  and
       account2.   Typically  account1 is associated with the CSV file, and is
       set once with a top-level assignment, while account2 is  set  based  on
       each transaction's description, and in conditional blocks.

       If  a  posting's  account name is left unset but its amount is set (see
       below), a default account name will be chosen (like  "expenses:unknown"
       or "income:unknown").

   amount field
       amountN  sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that posting to
       be generated.  By assigning to amount1, amount2,  ...   etc.   you  can
       generate up to 99 postings.

       amountN-in  and  amountN-out can be used instead, if the CSV uses sepa-
       rate fields for debits and credits  (inflows  and  outflows).   hledger
       assumes  both  of these CSV fields are unsigned, and will automatically
       negate the "-out" value.  If they are  signed,  see  "Setting  amounts"
       below.

       amount,  or  amount-in  and  amount-out are a legacy mode, to keep pre-
       hledger-1.17 CSV rules files working (and for occasional  convenience).
       They  are  suitable  only  for  two-posting transactions; they set both
       posting 1's and  posting  2's  amount.   Posting  2's  amount  will  be
       negated, and also converted to cost if there's a transaction price.

       If you have an existing rules file using the unnumbered form, you might
       want to use the numbered form in certain  conditional  blocks,  without
       having  to  update  and  retest all the old rules.  To facilitate this,
       posting   1   ignores    amount/amount-in/amount-out    if    any    of
       amount1/amount1-in/amount1-out are assigned, and posting 2 ignores them
       if any of amount2/amount2-in/amount2-out are  assigned,  avoiding  con-
       flicts.

   currency field
       currency  sets  a  currency  symbol,  to  be prepended to all postings'
       amounts.  You can use this if the CSV amounts do not  have  a  currency
       symbol, eg if it is in a separate column.

       currencyN  prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's amount.

   balance field
       balanceN sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting  amount  is
       left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N.

       balance is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is equivalent
       to balance1.

       You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with  the  balance-type
       rule (see below).

       See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency.

   separator
       You  can  use the separator rule to read other kinds of character-sepa-
       rated data.  The argument is any single  separator  character,  or  the
       words  tab or space (case insensitive).  Eg, for comma-separated values
       (CSV):

              separator ,

       or for semicolon-separated values (SSV):

              separator ;

       or for tab-separated values (TSV):

              separator TAB

       If the input file has a .csv, .ssv or .tsv file extension (or  a  csv:,
       ssv:, tsv: prefix), the appropriate separator will be inferred automat-
       ically, and you won't need this rule.

   if block
              if MATCHER
               RULE

              if
              MATCHER
              MATCHER
              MATCHER
               RULE
               RULE

       Conditional blocks ("if blocks") are a block of rules that are  applied
       only  to CSV records which match certain patterns.  They are often used
       for customising account names based on transaction descriptions.

   Matching the whole record
       Each MATCHER can be a record matcher, which looks like this:

              REGEX

       REGEX is a case-insensitive regular expression that tries to match any-
       where  within  the  CSV  record.   It  is a POSIX ERE (extended regular
       expression) that also supports GNU word boundaries (\b,  \B,  \<,  \>),
       and  nothing  else.   If  you  have  trouble, be sure to check our doc:
       https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expressions

       Important note: the record that is matched is not the original  record,
       but  a synthetic one, with any enclosing double quotes (but not enclos-
       ing whitespace) removed, and always comma-separated (which means that a
       field  containing  a  comma  will  appear like two fields).  Eg, if the
       original record is 2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc.";   1,000,  the  REGEX  will
       actually see 2020-01-01,Acme, Inc.,  1,000).

   Matching individual fields
       Or, MATCHER can be a field matcher, like this:

              %CSVFIELD REGEX

       which  matches just the content of a particular CSV field.  CSVFIELD is
       a percent sign followed by the field's  name  or  column  number,  like
       %date or %1.

   Combining matchers
       A single matcher can be written on the same line as the "if"; or multi-
       ple matchers can be written on the following lines, non-indented.  Mul-
       tiple  matchers are OR'd (any one of them can match), unless one begins
       with an & symbol, in which case it is AND'ed with the previous matcher.

              if
              MATCHER
              & MATCHER
               RULE

   Rules applied on successful match
       After  the  patterns  there  should  be one or more rules to apply, all
       indented by at least one space.  Three kinds of  rule  are  allowed  in
       conditional blocks:

       o field assignments (to set a hledger field)

       o skip (to skip the matched CSV record)

       o end (to skip all remaining CSV records).

       Examples:

              # if the CSV record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries"
              if groceries
               account2 expenses:groceries

              # if the CSV record contains any of these patterns, set account2 and comment as shown
              if
              monthly service fee
              atm transaction fee
              banking thru software
               account2 expenses:business:banking
               comment  XXX deductible ? check it

   if table
              if,CSVFIELDNAME1,CSVFIELDNAME2,...,CSVFIELDNAMEn
              MATCHER1,VALUE11,VALUE12,...,VALUE1n
              MATCHER2,VALUE21,VALUE22,...,VALUE2n
              MATCHER3,VALUE31,VALUE32,...,VALUE3n
              <empty line>

       Conditional  tables  ("if  tables")  are  a different syntax to specify
       field assignments that will be applied only to CSV records which  match
       certain patterns.

       MATCHER  could  be  either field or record matcher, as described above.
       When MATCHER matches, values from that row would be assigned to the CSV
       fields named on the if line, in the same order.

       Therefore if table is exactly equivalent to a sequence of of if blocks:

              if MATCHER1
                CSVFIELDNAME1 VALUE11
                CSVFIELDNAME2 VALUE12
                ...
                CSVFIELDNAMEn VALUE1n

              if MATCHER2
                CSVFIELDNAME1 VALUE21
                CSVFIELDNAME2 VALUE22
                ...
                CSVFIELDNAMEn VALUE2n

              if MATCHER3
                CSVFIELDNAME1 VALUE31
                CSVFIELDNAME2 VALUE32
                ...
                CSVFIELDNAMEn VALUE3n

       Each line starting with MATCHER should contain enough (possibly  empty)
       values for all the listed fields.

       Rules  would be checked and applied in the order they are listed in the
       table and, like with if blocks, later rules (in the same or another ta-
       ble) or if blocks could override the effect of any rule.

       Instead  of ',' you can use a variety of other non-alphanumeric charac-
       ters as a separator.  First character after if is taken to be the sepa-
       rator  for the rest of the table.  It is the responsibility of the user
       to ensure that separator does not occur inside MATCHERs  and  values  -
       there is no way to escape separator.

       Example:

              if,account2,comment
              atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it
              %description groceries,expenses:groceries,
              2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out

   end
       This  rule  can  be  used inside if blocks (only), to make hledger stop
       reading this CSV file and move on to the next input file, or to command
       execution.  Eg:

              # ignore everything following the first empty record
              if ,,,,
               end

   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 date
       parsing pattern, which 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

       For the supported strptime syntax, see:
       https://hackage.haskell.org/package/time/docs/Data-Time-For-
       mat.html#v:formatTime

       Note that although you can parse date-times which include a time  zone,
       that  time zone is ignored; it will not change the date that is parsed.
       This means when reading CSV data with times  not  in  your  local  time
       zone, dates can be "off by one".

   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.

   newest-first
       hledger  always sorts the generated transactions by date.  Transactions
       on the same date should appear in the same order as their CSV  records,
       as  hledger  can  usually auto-detect whether the CSV's normal order is
       oldest first or newest first.  But if all of the following are true:

       o the CSV might sometimes contain just one day  of  data  (all  records
         having the same date)

       o the  CSV  records are normally in reverse chronological order (newest
         at the top)

       o and you care about preserving the order of same-day transactions

       then, you should add the newest-first rule as a hint.  Eg:

              # tell hledger explicitly that the CSV is normally newest first
              newest-first

   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

   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

   Tips
   Rapid feedback
       It's a good idea to get rapid feedback  while  creating/troubleshooting
       CSV rules.  Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject:

              $ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC'

       A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a  few,  transactions
       of  interest.   "bash  -c"  is used to run multiple commands, so we can
       echo a separator each time the command re-runs,  making  it  easier  to
       read the output.

   Valid CSV
       hledger  accepts  CSV  conforming  to  RFC  4180.   When CSV values are
       enclosed in quotes, note:

       o they must be double quotes (not single quotes)

       o spaces outside the quotes are not allowed

   File Extension
       To help hledger identify the format and show the right error  messages,
       CSV/SSV/TSV  files  should  normally be named with a .csv, .ssv or .tsv
       filename extension.  Or, the file path should be  prefixed  with  csv:,
       ssv: or tsv:.  Eg:

              $ hledger -f foo.ssv print

       or:

              $ cat foo | hledger -f ssv:- foo

       You  can  override  the file extension with a separator rule if needed.
       See also: Input files in the hledger manual.

   Reading multiple CSV files
       If you use multiple -f options to read  multiple  CSV  files  at  once,
       hledger  will  look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV
       file.  But if you use the --rules-file option, that rules file will  be
       used for all the CSV files.

   Valid transactions
       After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the gen-
       erated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing them,
       applying  balance  assignments,  and canonicalising amount styles.  Any
       errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying  the
       problem entry.

       There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated them,
       will not be checked, since normally these will work only when  the  CSV
       data  is  part  of  the  main journal.  If you do need to check balance
       assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger:

              $ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print

   Deduplicating, importing
       When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your  latest  bank
       transactions,  the  new  file  may overlap with the old one, containing
       some of the same records.

       The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) append
       just those transactions to your main journal.  It is idempotent, so you
       don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which  version
       of  the  CSV.  (It keeps state in a hidden .latest.FILE.csv file.) This
       is the easiest way to import CSV data.  Eg:

              # download the latest CSV files, then run this command.
              # Note, no -f flags needed here.
              $ hledger import *.csv [--dry]

       This method works for most CSV files.  (Where  records  have  a  stable
       chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.)

       A  number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and otherwise,
       exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing CSV data.
       See:

       o https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows

       o https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion

   Setting amounts
       Some tips on using the amount-setting rules discussed above.

       Here are the ways to set a posting's amount:

       1. If the CSV has a single amount field:
       Assign (via a fields list or a field assignment) to amountN.  This sets
       the Nth posting's amount.  N is usually 1 or 2 but can go up to 99.

       2. If the CSV has separate amount fields for debit & credit (in & out):

           a. If both fields are unsigned:
           Assign to amountN-in and amountN-out.  This sets posting N's amount
           to whichever of these has a non-zero value, and negates the  "-out"
           value.

           b. If either field is signed (can contain a minus sign):
           Use  a  conditional  rule  to  flip the sign (of non-empty values).
           Since hledger always negates amountN-out, if it was  already  nega-
           tive,  we  must  undo  that  by negating once more (but only if the
           field is non-empty):

                  fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out
                  if %amount1-out [1-9]
                   amount1-out -%amount1-out

           c. If both fields, or neither field, can contain a non-zero value:
           hledger normally expects exactly one of the fields to have  a  non-
           zero  value.   Eg,  the  amountN-in/amountN-out  rules would reject
           value pairs like these:

                  "",  ""
                  "0", "0"
                  "1", "none"

           So, use smarter conditional rules to set the amount from the appro-
           priate  field.   Eg,  these  rules would make it use only the value
           containing non-zero digits, handling the above:

                  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:
       Assign to amount (or to amount-in and amount-out).  (This is the legacy
       numberless  syntax, which sets amount1 and amount2 and converts amount2
       to cost.)

       4. If the CSV has the balance instead of the transaction amount:
       Assign to balanceN, which sets posting N's amount indirectly via a bal-
       ance assignment.  (Old syntax: balance, equivalent to balance1.)

           o If hledger guesses the wrong default account name:
           When  setting  the  amount via balance assertion, hledger may guess
           the wrong default account name.  So, set the account  name  explic-
           itly, eg:

                    fields date, description, balance1
                    account1 assets:checking

   Amount signs
       There  is  some  special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing
       and sign-flipping:

       o If an amount value begins with a plus sign:
       that will be removed: +AMT becomes AMT

       o If an amount value is parenthesised:
       it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: (AMT) becomes -AMT

       o If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets  of  parentheses,
         or a minus sign and parentheses):
       they cancel out and will be removed: --AMT or -(AMT) becomes AMT

       o If  an  amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of parenthe-
         ses):
       that is removed, making it an empty value.  "+" or "-" or "()"  becomes
       "".

   Setting currency/commodity
       If  the  currency/commodity  symbol  is  included  in  the CSV's amount
       field(s):

              2020-01-01,foo,$123.00

       you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it will
       be assigned as part of the amount.  Eg:

              fields date,description,amount

              2020-01-01 foo
                  expenses:unknown         $123.00
                  income:unknown          $-123.00

       If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field:

              2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00

       You can assign that to the currency pseudo-field, which has the special
       effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction (on  the
       left, with no separating space):

              fields date,description,currency,amount

              2020-01-01 foo
                  expenses:unknown       USD123.00
                  income:unknown        USD-123.00

       Or,  you  can  use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself,
       with more control.  Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by
       a space:

              fields date,description,cur,amt
              amount %amt %cur

              2020-01-01 foo
                  expenses:unknown        123.00 USD
                  income:unknown         -123.00 USD

       Note  we  used a temporary field name (cur) that is not currency - that
       would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here.

   Amount decimal places
       Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like
       amount1 influence commodity display styles, such as the number of deci-
       mal places displayed in reports.

       The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not  affect  display
       style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity).

   Referencing other fields
       In  field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger
       fields.  In the example below, there's both a CSV field and  a  hledger
       field  named  amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the
       hledger field:

              # Name the third CSV field "amount1"
              fields date,description,amount1

              # Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD
              amount1 %amount1 USD

              # Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above)
              comment %amount1

       Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a  lit-
       eral "amount1":

              fields date,description,csvamount
              amount1 %csvamount USD
              # Can't interpolate amount1 here
              comment %amount1

       When  there  are  multiple field assignments to the same hledger field,
       only the last one takes effect.  Here, comment's value will be be B, or
       C if "something" is matched, but never A:

              comment A
              comment B
              if something
               comment C

   How CSV rules are evaluated
       Here's  how  to  think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need
       to).  First,

       o include - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth  first.
         (At  each  include  point the file is inlined and scanned for further
         includes, recursively, before proceeding.)

       Then "global" rules are  evaluated,  top  to  bottom.   If  a  rule  is
       repeated, the last one wins:

       o skip (at top level)

       o date-format

       o newest-first

       o fields - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial assignments
         to hledger fields

       Then for each CSV record in turn:

       o test all if blocks.  If any of them contain  a  end  rule,  skip  all
         remaining CSV records.  Otherwise if any of them contain a skip rule,
         skip that many CSV records.   If  there  are  multiple  matched  skip
         rules, the first one wins.

       o collect  all field assignments at top level and in matched if blocks.
         When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only  the  last
         one.

       o compute  a  value  for  each  hledger field - either the one that was
         assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELDNAME references),  or  a
         default

       o generate a synthetic hledger transaction 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.

TIMECLOCK FORMAT
       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).

              i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name  optional description after two spaces
              o 2015/03/30 09:20:00
              i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account
              o 2015/04/01 02:00:34

       hledger  treats  each  clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting
       some number of hours to an account.  Or if the session spans more  than
       one  day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day.  For
       the above time log, hledger print generates these journal entries:

              $ hledger -f t.timeclock print
              2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces
                  (some:account name)         0.33h

              2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59
                  (another account)         1.64h

              2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00
                  (another account)         2.01h

       Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try:

              $ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance                               # current time balances
              $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3                    # sessions in march 2009
              $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty  # time summary by week

       To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could:

       o use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the  extended  timeclock-
         x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el

       o at the command line, use these bash aliases: shell     alias ti="echo
         i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG"      alias  to="echo  o
         `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"

       o or use the old ti and to scripts in the ledger 2.x repository.  These
         rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the  ledger  2
         executable renamed.

TIMEDOT FORMAT
       timedot  format  is hledger's human-friendly time logging format.  Com-
       pared to timeclock format, it is

       o convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging

       o readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent.

       A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look  like
       this:

              2021-08-04
              hom:errands          .... ....
              fos:hledger:timedot  ..         ; docs
              per:admin:finance

       hledger  reads  this  as three time transactions on this day, with each
       dot representing a quarter-hour spent:

              $ hledger -f a.timedot print   # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader
              2021-08-04 *
                  (hom:errands)            2.00

              2021-08-04 *
                  (fos:hledger:timedot)    0.50

              2021-08-04 *
                  (per:admin:finance)      0

       A day entry begins with a date line:

       o a non-indented simple date (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D).

       Optionally this can be followed on the same line by

       o a common transaction description for this day

       o a common transaction comment for this day, after a semicolon (;).

       After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time  transac-
       tion lines, consisting of:

       o an account name - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style account
         name.

       o two or more spaces - a field  separator,  required  if  there  is  an
         amount (as in journal format).

       o a  timedot amount - dots representing quarter hours, or a number rep-
         resenting hours.

       o an optional comment beginning with semicolon.  This is ignored.

       In more detail, timedot amounts can be:

       o dots: zero or more period characters, each representing one  quarter-
         hour.   Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping.  Eg: .... ..

       o a number, representing hours.  Eg: 1.5

       o a number immediately followed by a unit symbol s, m, h, d, w, mo,  or
         y, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days weeks, months or years.
         Eg 1.5h or 90m.  The following equivalencies are assumed:
       60s = 1m, 60m = 1h, 24h = 1d, 7d = 1w, 30d = 1mo,  365d  =  1y.   (This
       unit  will not be visible in the generated transaction amount, which is
       always in hours.)

       There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log  data  in
       the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.:

       o Lines beginning with # or ;, and blank lines, are ignored.

       o Lines  not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as trans-
         actions with zero  amount.   (Most  hledger  reports  hide  these  by
         default; add -E to see them.)

       o One or more stars (*) followed by a space, at the start of a line, is
         ignored.  So date lines or time transaction lines can  also  be  Org-
         mode headlines.

       o All Org-mode headlines before the first date line are ignored.

       More examples:

              # on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc.
              2016/2/1
              inc:client1   .... .... .... .... .... ....
              fos:haskell   .... ..
              biz:research  .

              2016/2/2
              inc:client1   .... ....
              biz:research  .

              2016/2/3
              inc:client1   4
              fos:hledger   3
              biz:research  1

              * Time log
              ** 2020-01-01
              *** adm:time  .
              *** adm:finance  .

              * 2020 Work Diary
              ** Q1
              *** 2020-02-29
              **** DONE
              0700 yoga
              **** UNPLANNED
              **** BEGUN
              hom:chores
               cleaning  ...
               water plants
                outdoor - one full watering can
                indoor - light watering
              **** TODO
              adm:planning: trip
              *** LATER

       Reporting:

              $ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2
              2016-02-02 *
                  (inc:client1)          2.00

              2016-02-02 *
                  (biz:research)          0.25

              $ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree
              Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03:

                          ||  2016-02-01d  2016-02-02d  2016-02-03d
              ============++========================================
               biz        ||         0.25         0.25         1.00
                 research ||         0.25         0.25         1.00
               fos        ||         1.50            0         3.00
                 haskell  ||         1.50            0            0
                 hledger  ||            0            0         3.00
               inc        ||         6.00         2.00         4.00
                 client1  ||         6.00         2.00         4.00
              ------------++----------------------------------------
                          ||         7.75         2.25         8.00

       Using period instead of colon as account name separator:

              2016/2/4
              fos.hledger.timedot  4
              fos.ledger           ..

              $ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree
                              4.50  fos
                              4.00    hledger:timedot
                              0.50    ledger
              --------------------
                              4.50

       A sample.timedot file.

COMMON TASKS
       Here  are  some  quick  examples  of  how  to  do some basic tasks with
       hledger.  For more  details,  see  the  reference  section  below,  the
       hledger_journal(5)    manual,   or   the   more   extensive   docs   at
       https://hledger.org.

   Getting help
              $ hledger                  # show available commands
              $ hledger --help           # show common options
              $ hledger CMD --help       # show common and command options, and command help
              $ hledger help             # show available manuals/topics
              $ hledger help hledger     # show hledger manual, as info/man/text (auto-chosen)
              $ hledger help journal -m  # show the journal topic, as a man page scrolled to that section
              $ hledger help --help      # show more detailed help for the help command

       Find   more   docs,   chat,   mail   list,   reddit,   issue   tracker:
       https://hledger.org/support.html

   Constructing command lines
       hledger  has  an  extensive  and  powerful  command line interface.  We
       strive to keep it simple and ergonomic, but you may run into one of the
       confusing real world details described in OPTIONS, below.  If that hap-
       pens, here are some tips that may help:

       o command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to  put
         all options there) (hledger CMD OPTS ARGS)

       o running  add-on  executables directly simplifies command line parsing
         (hledger-ui OPTS ARGS)

       o enclose "problematic" args in single quotes

       o if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression  metachar-
         acters from the shell

       o to see how a misbehaving command is being parsed, add --debug=2.

   Starting a journal file
       hledger   looks   for   your   accounting   data  in  a  journal  file,
       $HOME/.hledger.journal by default:

              $ hledger stats
              The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found.
              Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor.
              Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE.

       You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment  variable.
       It's a good practice to keep this important file under version control,
       and to start a new file each year.  So  you  could  do  something  like
       this:

              $ mkdir ~/finance
              $ cd ~/finance
              $ git init
              Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/
              $ touch 2020.journal
              $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc
              $ source ~/.bashrc
              $ hledger stats
              Main file                : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal
              Included files           :
              Transactions span        :  to  (0 days)
              Last transaction         : none
              Transactions             : 0 (0.0 per day)
              Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
              Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
              Payees/descriptions      : 0
              Accounts                 : 0 (depth 0)
              Commodities              : 0 ()
              Market prices            : 0 ()

   Setting opening balances
       Pick  a  starting  date  for which you can look up the balances of some
       real-world assets (bank accounts,  wallet..)  and  liabilities  (credit
       cards..).

       To  avoid  a  lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or
       two accounts, like your checking account or cash  wallet;  and  pick  a
       recent  starting  date,  like  today or the start of the week.  You can
       always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg
       going back to january 1st.

       Add  an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the bal-
       ances on this date.  Here are two ways to do it:

       o The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an  entry
         like this:

                2020-01-01 * opening balances
                    assets:bank:checking                $1000   = $1000
                    assets:bank:savings                 $2000   = $2000
                    assets:cash                          $100   = $100
                    liabilities:creditcard               $-50   = $-50
                    equity:opening/closing balances

         These  are  start-of-day  balances, ie whatever was in the account at
         the end of the previous day.

         The * after the date is an  optional  status  flag.   Here  it  means
         "cleared & confirmed".

         The  currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you'll
         be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later.

         The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra  error
         checking.

       o The  second  way:  run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a
         similar transaction:

                $ hledger add
                Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal
                Any command line arguments will be used as defaults.
                Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults.
                An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates.
                An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts.
                If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward.
                To end a transaction, enter . when prompted.
                To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c.
                Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01
                Description: * opening balances
                Account 1: assets:bank:checking
                Amount  1: $1000
                Account 2: assets:bank:savings
                Amount  2 [$-1000]: $2000
                Account 3: assets:cash
                Amount  3 [$-3000]: $100
                Account 4: liabilities:creditcard
                Amount  4 [$-3100]: $-50
                Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances
                Amount  5 [$-3050]:
                Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
                2020-01-01 * opening balances
                    assets:bank:checking                      $1000
                    assets:bank:savings                       $2000
                    assets:cash                                $100
                    liabilities:creditcard                     $-50
                    equity:opening/closing balances          $-3050

                Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]:
                Saved.
                Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
                Date [2020-01-01]: .

       If you're using version control, this could be a good  time  to  commit
       the journal.  Eg:

              $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal

   Recording transactions
       As  you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using
       one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add)  or  by  using  the
       hledger-iadd  or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to
       convert CSV data downloaded from your bank.

       Here are some simple transactions, see  the  hledger_journal(5)  manual
       and hledger.org for more ideas:

              2020/1/10 * gift received
                assets:cash   $20
                income:gifts

              2020.1.12 * farmers market
                expenses:food    $13
                assets:cash

              2020-01-15 paycheck
                income:salary
                assets:bank:checking    $1000

   Reconciling
       Periodically  you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported bal-
       ances against external sources of truth, like bank statements  or  your
       bank's  website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the
       real-world balances (and, that the  real-world  institutions  have  not
       made  a  mistake!).   This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2)
       frequency.  If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes.  If  you  let
       it  pile  up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and dis-
       crepancies.

       A typical workflow:

       1. Reconcile cash.  Count what's in your  wallet.   Compare  with  what
          hledger  reports  (hledger bal cash).  If they are different, try to
          remember the missing transaction, or  look  for  the  error  in  the
          already-recorded  transactions.   A  register  report can be helpful
          (hledger reg cash).  If you can't find the error, add an  adjustment
          transaction.  Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain
          the missing $2, it could be:

                  2020-01-16 * adjust cash
                      assets:cash    $-2 = $105
                      expenses:misc

       2. Reconcile checking.  Log in to your bank's website.  Compare today's
          (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal check-
          ing -C).  If they are different, track down the error or record  the
          missing  transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to
          the above.  Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the trans-
          action  history  and  running  balance  from  your bank with the one
          reported by hledger reg checking -C.  This will  be  easier  if  you
          generally  record  transaction  dates  quite  similar to your bank's
          clearing dates.

       3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts.

       Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui  to  see  a  live-
       updating register while you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --reg-
       ister checking -C

       After reconciling, it could be a  good  time  to  mark  the  reconciled
       transactions'  status  as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track
       that, by adding the * marker.  Eg in the  paycheck  transaction  above,
       insert * between 2020-01-15 and paycheck

       If  you're using version control, this can be another good time to com-
       mit:

              $ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal

   Reporting
       Here are some basic reports.

       Show all transactions:

              $ hledger print
              2020-01-01 * opening balances
                  assets:bank:checking                      $1000
                  assets:bank:savings                       $2000
                  assets:cash                                $100
                  liabilities:creditcard                     $-50
                  equity:opening/closing balances          $-3050

              2020-01-10 * gift received
                  assets:cash              $20
                  income:gifts

              2020-01-12 * farmers market
                  expenses:food             $13
                  assets:cash

              2020-01-15 * paycheck
                  income:salary
                  assets:bank:checking           $1000

              2020-01-16 * adjust cash
                  assets:cash               $-2 = $105
                  expenses:misc

       Show account names, and their hierarchy:

              $ hledger accounts --tree
              assets
                bank
                  checking
                  savings
                cash
              equity
                opening/closing balances
              expenses
                food
                misc
              income
                gifts
                salary
              liabilities
                creditcard

       Show all account totals:

              $ hledger balance
                             $4105  assets
                             $4000    bank
                             $2000      checking
                             $2000      savings
                              $105    cash
                            $-3050  equity:opening/closing balances
                               $15  expenses
                               $13    food
                                $2    misc
                            $-1020  income
                              $-20    gifts
                            $-1000    salary
                              $-50  liabilities:creditcard
              --------------------
                                 0

       Show only asset and liability balances, as  a  flat  list,  limited  to
       depth 2:

              $ hledger bal assets liabilities --flat -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 --flat -2
              Balance Sheet 2020-01-16

                                      || 2020-01-16
              ========================++============
               Assets                 ||
              ------------------------++------------
               assets:bank            ||      $4000
               assets:cash            ||       $105
              ------------------------++------------
                                      ||      $4105
              ========================++============
               Liabilities            ||
              ------------------------++------------
               liabilities:creditcard ||        $50
              ------------------------++------------
                                      ||        $50
              ========================++============
               Net:                   ||      $4055

       The final total is your "net worth" on the end date.  (Or use bse for a
       full balance sheet with equity.)

       Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement:

              hledger is
              Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16

                             || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16
              ===============++=======================
               Revenues      ||
              ---------------++-----------------------
               income:gifts  ||                   $20
               income:salary ||                 $1000
              ---------------++-----------------------
                             ||                 $1020
              ===============++=======================
               Expenses      ||
              ---------------++-----------------------
               expenses:food ||                   $13
               expenses:misc ||                    $2
              ---------------++-----------------------
                             ||                   $15
              ===============++=======================
               Net:          ||                 $1005

       The final total is your net income during this period.

       Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total:

              $ hledger register cash
              2020-01-01 opening balances     assets:cash                   $100          $100
              2020-01-10 gift received        assets:cash                    $20          $120
              2020-01-12 farmers market       assets:cash                   $-13          $107
              2020-01-16 adjust cash          assets:cash                    $-2          $105

       Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart:

              $ hledger activity -W
              2019-12-30 *****
              2020-01-06 ****
              2020-01-13 ****

   Migrating to a new file
       At  the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new
       file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports,
       and  to  help ensure the integrity of your accounting history.  See the
       close command.

       If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file.

LIMITATIONS
       The need to precede add-on command options with --  when  invoked  from
       hledger is awkward.

       When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale
       must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error).  Eg on POSIX,
       set LANG to something other than C.

       In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are
       not supported.

       On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running
       a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa.

       In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger
       add.

       Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported.  See hledger  and
       Ledger > Differences > journal format.

       On  large  data  files,  hledger  is  slower  and uses more memory than
       Ledger.

TROUBLESHOOTING
       Here are some issues you might encounter  when  you  run  hledger  (and
       remember  you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug
       tracker):

       Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found"
       stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should
       be  added  to your PATH environment variable.  Eg on unix-like systems,
       that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively.

       I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file
       LEDGER_FILE  should  be  a  real environment variable, not just a shell
       variable.  The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it.  You  may
       need to use export.  Here's an explanation.

       Getting  errors  like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete
       multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid  argu-
       ment (invalid character)"
       Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to
       have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they
       will  fail  with  these  kinds  of errors when they encounter non-ascii
       characters.

       To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which  sup-
       ports UTF-8.  The locale you choose must be installed on your system.

       Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux:

              $ file my.journal
              my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text         # the file is UTF8-encoded
              $ echo $LANG
              C                                      # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8
              $ locale -a                            # which locales are installed ?
              C
              en_US.utf8                             # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use
              POSIX
              $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print   # ensure it is used for this command

       If  available,  C.UTF-8 will also work.  If your preferred locale isn't
       listed  by  locale  -a,  you  might  need  to  install   it.    Eg   on
       Ubuntu/Debian:

              $ apt-get install language-pack-fr
              $ locale -a
              C
              en_US.utf8
              fr_BE.utf8
              fr_CA.utf8
              fr_CH.utf8
              fr_FR.utf8
              fr_LU.utf8
              POSIX
              $ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print

       Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell:

              $ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile
              $ bash --login

       Exact  spelling  and capitalisation may be important.  Note the differ-
       ence on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8).   Some  platforms  (eg  ubuntu)  allow
       variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact:

              $ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf
              en_US.UTF-8
              $ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print



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) 2007-2020 Simon Michael.
       Released under GNU GPL v3 or later.


SEE ALSO
       hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), ledger(1)



hledger-1.26.99                    July 2022                        HLEDGER(1)
