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@ -1,203 +1,166 @@
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close, equity
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Prints a sample "closing" transaction bringing specified account
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balances to zero, and an inverse "opening" transaction restoring the
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same account balances.
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close
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If like most people you split your journal files by time, eg by year: at
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the end of the year you can use this command to "close out" your asset
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and liability (and perhaps equity) balances in the old file, and
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reinitialise them in the new file. This helps ensure that report
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balances remain correct whether you are including old files or not.
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(Because all closing/opening transactions except the very first will
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cancel out - see example below.)
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close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY]
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Some people also use this command to close out revenue and expense
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balances at the end of an accounting period. This properly records the
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period's profit/loss as "retained earnings" (part of equity), and allows
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the accounting equation (A-L=E) to balance, which you could then check
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by the bse report's zero total.
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By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out ("closes") all
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accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. Query
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arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. Three other
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modes are supported:
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--retain: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense balances.
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This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each accounting
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period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based accounting,
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but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E.
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--migrate: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and most
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equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. This can be
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useful when starting a new file (for performance or data protection).
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Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files
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to be combined.
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--open: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. This can be
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useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file unchanged. Similar
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to Ledger's equity command.
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_FLAGS
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You can print just the closing transaction by using the --close flag, or
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just the opening transaction with the --open flag.
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You can change the equity account name with --close-acct ACCT. It
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defaults to equity:retained earnings with --retain, or
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equity:opening/closing balances otherwise.
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Their descriptions are closing balances and opening balances by default;
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you can customise these with the --close-desc and --open-desc options.
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You can change the transaction description(s) with --close-desc 'DESC'
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and --open-desc 'DESC'. It defaults to retain earnings with --retain, or
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closing balances and opening balances otherwise.
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Just one balancing equity posting is used by default, with the amount
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left implicit. The default account name is
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equity:opening/closing balances. You can customise the account name(s)
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with --close-acct and --open-acct. (If you specify only one of these, it
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will be used for both.)
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Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with an
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implicit amount.
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With --x/--explicit, the equity posting's amount will be shown
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explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, there will be a
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separate equity posting for each commodity (as in the print command).
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With --x/--explicit the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it
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involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for
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each commodity.
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With --interleaved, each equity posting is shown next to the posting it
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balances (good for troubleshooting).
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With --interleaved, each equity posting is shown next to the
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corresponding source/destination posting.
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The default closing date is yesterday or the journal's end date,
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whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end date;
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the last day of the report period will be the closing date. Eg -e 2022
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means "close on 2022-12-31".
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The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date,
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whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end date;
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(The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the report
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period will be the closing date; eg -e 2022 means "close on 2022-12-31".
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The opening date is always the day after the closing date.
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close and costs
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Costs are ignored (and discarded) by closing/opening transactions, by
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default. With --show-costs, they are preserved; there will be a separate
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equity posting for each cost in each commodity. This means balance -B
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reports will look the same after the transition. Note if you have many
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foreign currency or investment transactions, this will generate very
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large journal entries.
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close date
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The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date,
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whichever is later.
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Unless you are running close on exactly the first day of the new period,
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you'll want to override the closing date. This is done by specifying a
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report end date, where "last day of the report period" will be the
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closing date. The opening date is always the following day. So to close
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on (end of) 2020-12-31 and open on (start of) 2021-01-01, any of these
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will work:
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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end date explanation
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argument
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--------------- -------------------------------------------------------
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-e 2021-01-01 end dates are exclusive
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-e 2021 equivalent, per smart dates
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-p 2020 equivalent, the period's begin date is ignored
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date:2020 equivalent query
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Example: close asset/liability accounts for file transition
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Carrying asset/liability balances from 2020.journal into a new file for
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2021:
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$ hledger close -f 2020.journal -p 2020 assets liabilities
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# copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2020.journal
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# copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2021.journal
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Or:
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$ hledger close -f 2020.journal -p 2020 assets liabilities --open >> 2021.journal # add 2021's first transaction
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$ hledger close -f 2020.journal -p 2020 assets liabilities --close >> 2020.journal # add 2020's last transaction
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Now,
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$ hledger bs -f 2021.journal # just new file - balances correct
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$ hledger bs -f 2020.journal -f 2021.journal # old and new files - balances correct
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$ hledger bs -f 2020.journal # just old files - balances are zero ?
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# (exclude final closing txn, see below)
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Hiding opening/closing transactions
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Although the closing/opening transactions cancel out, they will be
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visible in reports like print and register, creating some visual
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clutter. You can exclude them all with a query, like:
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$ hledger print not:desc:'opening|closing' # less typing
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$ hledger print not:'equity:opening/closing balances' # more precise
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But when reporting on multiple files, this can get a bit tricky; you may
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need to keep the earliest opening balances, for a historical register
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report; or you may need to suppress a closing transaction, to see
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year-end balances. If you find yourself needing more precise queries,
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here's one solution: add more easily-matched tags to opening/closing
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transactions, like this:
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; 2019.journal
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2019-01-01 opening balances ; earliest opening txn, no tag here
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...
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2019-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2020
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...
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; 2020.journal
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2020-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2020
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...
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2020-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2021
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...
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; 2021.journal
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2021-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2021
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...
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Now with
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; all.journal
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include 2019.journal
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include 2020.journal
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include 2021.journal
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you could do eg:
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$ hledger -f all.journal reg -H checking not:tag:clopen
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# all years checking register, hiding non-essential opening/closing txns
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$ hledger -f all.journal bs -p 2020 not:tag:clopen=2020
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# 2020 year end balances, suppressing 2020 closing txn
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With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings
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for each cost. (This currently the best way to view investment assets,
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showing lots and cost bases.) If you have many currency conversion or
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investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries.
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close and balance assertions
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The closing and opening transactions will include balance assertions,
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verifying that the accounts have first been reset to zero and then
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restored to their previous balance. These provide valuable error
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checking, alerting you when things get out of line, but you can ignore
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them temporarily with -I or just remove them if you prefer.
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Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have
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been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if
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there is an opening transaction).
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You probably shouldn't use status or realness filters (like -C or -R or
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status:) with close, or the generated balance assertions will depend on
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these flags. Likewise, if you run this command with --auto, the balance
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assertions would probably always require --auto.
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These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them temporarily
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with -I, or remove them if you prefer.
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Multi-day transactions (where some postings have a different date) break
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the balance assertions, because the money is temporarily "invisible"
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while in transit:
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You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or realness
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(-C, -R, status:), or generating postings (--auto), with this command,
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since the balance assertions would depend on these.
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2020/12/30 a purchase made in december, cleared in the next year
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Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the
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balance assertions:
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2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january
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expenses:food 5
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assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2021/1/2
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assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02
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To fix the assertions, you can add a temporary account to track such
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in-transit money (splitting the multi-day transaction into two
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single-day transactions):
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To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary
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account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two
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single-day transactions:
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; in 2020.journal:
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2020/12/30 a purchase made in december, cleared in the next year
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; in 2022.journal:
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2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january
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expenses:food 5
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liabilities:pending
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equity:pending -5
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; in 2021.journal:
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2021/1/2 clearance of last year's pending transactions
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liabilities:pending 5 = 0
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assets:bank:checking
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; in 2023.journal:
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2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared
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equity:pending 5 = 0
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assets:bank:checking -5
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Example: close revenue/expense accounts to retained earnings
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Example: retain earnings
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For this, use --close to suppress the opening transaction, as it's not
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needed. Also you'll want to change the equity account name to your
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equivalent of "equity:retained earnings".
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Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31,
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appending the generated transaction to the journal:
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Closing 2021's first quarter revenues/expenses:
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$ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal
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$ hledger close -f 2021.journal --close revenues expenses -p 2021Q1 \
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--close-acct='equity:retained earnings' >> 2021.journal
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Now 2022's income statement will show only zeroes. To see it again,
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exclude the retain transaction. Eg:
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The same, using the default journal and current year:
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$ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings'
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$ hledger close --close revenues expenses -p Q1 \
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--close-acct='equity:retained earnings' >> $LEDGER_FILE
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Example: migrate balances to a new file
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Now, the first quarter's balance sheet should show a zero (unless you
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are using @/@@ notation without equity postings):
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Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on
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2023-01-01:
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$ hledger bse -p Q1
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$ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022
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# copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal
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# copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal
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And we must suppress the closing transaction to see the first quarter's
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income statement (using the description; not:'retained earnings' won't
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work here):
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Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced
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accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that case,
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try adding --infer-equity.) To see it again, exclude the closing
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transaction. Eg:
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$ hledger is -p Q1 not:desc:'closing balances'
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$ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances'
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Example: excluding closing/opening transactions
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When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening
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transactions cause some noise in reports like print and register. You
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can exclude them as shown above, but not:desc:... could be fragile, and
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also you will need to avoid excluding the very first opening
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transaction, which can be awkward. Here is a way to do it, using tags:
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add clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except the
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first, like this:
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; 2021.journal
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2021-06-01 first opening balances
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...
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2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022
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...
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; 2022.journal
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2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022
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...
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2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023
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...
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; 2023.journal
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2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023
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...
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Now, assuming a combined journal like:
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; all.journal
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include 2021.journal
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include 2022.journal
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include 2023.journal
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The clopen: tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. To
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show a clean multi-year checking register:
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$ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen
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And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end
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balance sheet:
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$ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023
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Simon Michael