From 460a1fc209dace5d25003bba97376f6d1037720e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Simon Michael Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2022 09:33:11 -1000 Subject: [PATCH] ;doc: update manuals --- hledger-ui/hledger-ui.1 | 4 +- hledger-ui/hledger-ui.info | 2 +- hledger-ui/hledger-ui.txt | 4 +- hledger-web/hledger-web.1 | 4 +- hledger-web/hledger-web.info | 2 +- hledger-web/hledger-web.txt | 4 +- hledger/hledger.1 | 247 +++-- hledger/hledger.info | 1212 +++++++++++++------------ hledger/hledger.txt | 1634 ++++++++++++++++++---------------- 9 files changed, 1653 insertions(+), 1460 deletions(-) diff --git a/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.1 b/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.1 index a3f5283a8..8bcb59f45 100644 --- a/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.1 +++ b/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.1 @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ -.TH "HLEDGER-UI" "1" "December 2021" "hledger-ui-1.24.99 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER-UI" "1" "December 2021" "hledger-ui-1.25.99 " "hledger User Manuals" @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ .PP hledger-ui is a terminal interface (TUI) for the hledger accounting tool. -This manual is for hledger-ui 1.24.99. +This manual is for hledger-ui 1.25.99. .SH SYNOPSIS .PP \f[C]hledger-ui [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]\f[R] diff --git a/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.info b/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.info index 2c33d3e39..e12d3e1a8 100644 --- a/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.info +++ b/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.info @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ hledger-ui(1) ************* hledger-ui is a terminal interface (TUI) for the hledger accounting -tool. This manual is for hledger-ui 1.24.99. +tool. This manual is for hledger-ui 1.25.99. 'hledger-ui [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]' 'hledger ui -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]' diff --git a/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.txt b/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.txt index af47b041b..b9e4d6d2b 100644 --- a/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.txt +++ b/hledger-ui/hledger-ui.txt @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ HLEDGER-UI(1) hledger User Manuals HLEDGER-UI(1) NAME hledger-ui is a terminal interface (TUI) for the hledger accounting - tool. This manual is for hledger-ui 1.24.99. + tool. This manual is for hledger-ui 1.25.99. SYNOPSIS hledger-ui [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS] @@ -548,4 +548,4 @@ SEE ALSO -hledger-ui-1.24.99 December 2021 HLEDGER-UI(1) +hledger-ui-1.25.99 December 2021 HLEDGER-UI(1) diff --git a/hledger-web/hledger-web.1 b/hledger-web/hledger-web.1 index ea45f523e..240c06be8 100644 --- a/hledger-web/hledger-web.1 +++ b/hledger-web/hledger-web.1 @@ -1,12 +1,12 @@ -.TH "HLEDGER-WEB" "1" "December 2021" "hledger-web-1.24.99 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER-WEB" "1" "December 2021" "hledger-web-1.25.99 " "hledger User Manuals" .SH NAME .PP hledger-web is a web interface (WUI) for the hledger accounting tool. -This manual is for hledger-web 1.24.99. +This manual is for hledger-web 1.25.99. .SH SYNOPSIS .PP \f[C]hledger-web [OPTIONS]\f[R] diff --git a/hledger-web/hledger-web.info b/hledger-web/hledger-web.info index ee9353973..cc7484e79 100644 --- a/hledger-web/hledger-web.info +++ b/hledger-web/hledger-web.info @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ hledger-web(1) ************** hledger-web is a web interface (WUI) for the hledger accounting tool. -This manual is for hledger-web 1.24.99. +This manual is for hledger-web 1.25.99. 'hledger-web [OPTIONS]' 'hledger web -- [OPTIONS]' diff --git a/hledger-web/hledger-web.txt b/hledger-web/hledger-web.txt index 56a91a7b9..a36c2ee30 100644 --- a/hledger-web/hledger-web.txt +++ b/hledger-web/hledger-web.txt @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ HLEDGER-WEB(1) hledger User Manuals HLEDGER-WEB(1) NAME hledger-web is a web interface (WUI) for the hledger accounting tool. - This manual is for hledger-web 1.24.99. + This manual is for hledger-web 1.25.99. SYNOPSIS hledger-web [OPTIONS] @@ -585,4 +585,4 @@ SEE ALSO -hledger-web-1.24.99 December 2021 HLEDGER-WEB(1) +hledger-web-1.25.99 December 2021 HLEDGER-WEB(1) diff --git a/hledger/hledger.1 b/hledger/hledger.1 index 05c8ea0a0..e7275167e 100644 --- a/hledger/hledger.1 +++ b/hledger/hledger.1 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ .\"t -.TH "HLEDGER" "1" "December 2021" "hledger-1.24.99 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER" "1" "December 2021" "hledger-1.25.99 " "hledger User Manuals" @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ This is the command-line interface (CLI) for the hledger accounting tool. Here we also describe hledger\[aq]s concepts and file formats. -This manual is for hledger 1.24.99. +This manual is for hledger 1.25.99. .SH SYNOPSIS .PP \f[C]hledger\f[R] @@ -706,8 +706,8 @@ Are all commodities declared with a \f[C]commodity\f[R] directive ? .IP \[bu] 2 Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? .PP -You can also use the check command to run these and some additional -checks. +You can use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones +listed above and some more. .SH TIME PERIODS .SS Smart dates .PP @@ -1464,14 +1464,32 @@ Match real or virtual postings respectively. .PD Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. .PP +\f[B]\f[CB]type:TYPECODES\f[B]\f[R] +.PD 0 +.P +.PD +Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). +\f[C]TYPECODES\f[R] is one or more of the single-letter account type +codes \f[C]ALERXCV\f[R], case insensitive. +Note \f[C]type:A\f[R] and \f[C]type:E\f[R] will also match their +respective subtypes \f[C]C\f[R] (Cash) and \f[C]V\f[R] (Conversion). +Certain kinds of account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting +accounts > Aliases and account types. +.PP \f[B]\f[CB]tag:REGEX[=REGEX]\f[B]\f[R] .PD 0 .P .PD Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. -(To match only by value, use \f[C]tag:.=REGEX\f[R].) Note that postings -also inherit tags from their transaction, and transactions also acquire -tags from their postings, when querying. +(To match only by value, use \f[C]tag:.=REGEX\f[R].) +.PP +When querying by tag, note that: +.IP \[bu] 2 +Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts +.IP \[bu] 2 +Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction +.IP \[bu] 2 +Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. .PP (\f[B]\f[CB]inacct:ACCTNAME\f[B]\f[R] .PD 0 @@ -2934,6 +2952,10 @@ account name components. Account names can be depth-clipped with \f[C]depth:N\f[R] or \f[C]--depth N\f[R] or \f[C]-N\f[R]. .PP +With \f[C]--types\f[R], it also shows each account\[aq]s type, if +it\[aq]s known. +(See Declaring accounts > Account types.) +.PP Examples: .IP .nf @@ -7031,8 +7053,8 @@ write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity\[aq]s balance. .PP You can make a stronger \[dq]total\[dq] balance assertion by writing a double equals sign (\f[C]== EXPECTEDBALANCE\f[R]). -This asserts that there are no other unasserted commodities in the -account (or, that their balance is 0). +This asserts that there are no other commodities in the account besides +the asserted one (or at least, that their balance is 0). .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -7695,18 +7717,18 @@ Though not required, these declarations can provide several benefits: They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a reference. .IP \[bu] 2 +They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alphabetic +sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). +.IP \[bu] 2 They can help hledger know your accounts\[aq] types (asset, liability, equity, revenue, expense), useful for reports like balancesheet and incomestatement. .IP \[bu] 2 -They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alphabetic -sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). +They can store other account information, as comments or as tags which +can be used to filter reports. .IP \[bu] 2 -They can store extra information about accounts (account numbers, notes, -etc.) -.IP \[bu] 2 -They help with account name completion in the add command, hledger-iadd, -hledger-web, ledger-mode etc. +They help with account name completion (in hledger add, hledger-web, +hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) .IP \[bu] 2 In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by transactions, which helps detect typos. @@ -7763,13 +7785,14 @@ An example of both: .IP .nf \f[C] -account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces before ; +account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces required before ; ; next-line comment - ; another with tag, acctno:12345 (not used yet) + ; some tags, type:A, acctnum:12345 \f[R] .fi .PP -Same-line comments are not supported by Ledger, or hledger <1.13. +Compatibility note: same-line comments are not supported by Ledger or +hledger <1.13. .SS Account subdirectives .PP We also allow (and ignore) Ledger-style indented subdirectives, just for @@ -7786,92 +7809,124 @@ Here is the full syntax of account directives: .IP .nf \f[C] -account ACCTNAME [ACCTTYPE] [;COMMENT] +account ACCTNAME [;type:ACCTTYPE] [COMMENT] [;COMMENTS] [LEDGER-STYLE SUBDIRECTIVES, IGNORED] \f[R] .fi .SS Account types .PP -By adding a \f[C]type\f[R] tag to the account directive, with value -\f[C]A\f[R], \f[C]L\f[R], \f[C]E\f[R], \f[C]R\f[R], \f[C]X\f[R], -\f[C]C\f[R], \f[C]V\f[R] (or if you prefer: \f[C]Asset\f[R], -\f[C]Liability\f[R], \f[C]Equity\f[R], \f[C]Revenue\f[R], -\f[C]Expense\f[R], \f[C]Cash\f[R], \f[C]Conversion\f[R]), you can -declare hledger accounts to be of a certain type: -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[B]asset\f[R], \f[B]liability\f[R], \f[B]equity\f[R], -\f[B]revenue\f[R], \f[B]expense\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -the standard types in accounting, or -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[B]cash\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -a subtype of asset, used for liquid assets. -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[B]conversion\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -a subtype of equity, used for conversion postings +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 \f[C]type:\f[R] query. .PP -Declaring account types is a good idea, since it helps enable the easy -balancesheet, balancesheetequity, incomestatement and cashflow reports, -and probably other things in future. -As a convenience, when account types are not declared, hledger will try -to guess them based on english-language account names. +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 +\f[C]type:\f[R] tag to your top-level account directives. +Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. +The tag\[aq]s value should be one of the five main account types: +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]A\f[R] or \f[C]Asset\f[R] (things you own) +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]L\f[R] or \f[C]Liability\f[R] (things you owe) +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]E\f[R] or \f[C]Equity\f[R] (investment/ownership; balanced +counterpart of assets & liabilities) +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]R\f[R] or \f[C]Revenue\f[R] (what you received money from, AKA +income; technically part of Equity) +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]X\f[R] or \f[C]Expense\f[R] (what you spend money on; technically +part of Equity) .PP -Here is a typical set of top-level account declarations (because of the -aforementioned, with these account names the type tags are not strictly -needed, but with non-english or non-standard account names, they will -be): +or, it can be (these are used less often): +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]C\f[R] or \f[C]Cash\f[R] (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid +assets for the cashflow report) +.IP \[bu] 2 +\f[C]V\f[R] or \f[C]Conversion\f[R] (a subtype of Equity, for +conversions (see CONVERSION & COST).) +.PP +Here is a typical set of account type declarations: .IP .nf \f[C] -account assets ; type: A -account liabilities ; type: L -account equity ; type: E -account revenues ; type: R -account expenses ; type: X +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 assets:bank ; type: C +account assets:cash ; type: C + +account equity:conversion ; type: V \f[R] .fi .PP -It\[aq]s not necessary to declare the type of subaccounts. -(You can, if they are different from the parent, but this is not -common.) -.SS Auto-detected account types -.PP -More about \[dq]guessing\[dq] account types: hledger tries to find at -least one top level account in each of the six account types (Asset, -Liability, Equity, Revenue, Expense, Cash). -When no accounts have been declared for a particular type, it tries to -auto-detect some accounts by name, using the regular expressions below. -Note: if you declare any account\[aq]s type, it\[aq]s a good idea to -declare an account for all six types, because a mix of declared and -auto-detected types can cause confusing results. -.PP -The auto-detection rules are: +Here are some tips for working with account types. +.IP \[bu] 2 +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\[aq]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. +.RS 2 .IP .nf \f[C] - If account\[aq]s name matches this case insensitive regular expression:| its type is: -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------ - \[ha]assets?(:|$) | - and does not contain regexp (investment|receivable|:A/R|:fixed) | Cash - otherwise | Asset - \[ha](debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - \[ha]equity(:|$) | Equity - \[ha](income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - \[ha]expenses?(:|$) | Expense +If account\[aq]s name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: +--------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- +\[ha]assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash +\[ha]assets?(:|$) | Asset +\[ha](debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability +\[ha]equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion +\[ha]equity(:|$) | Equity +\[ha](income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue +\[ha]expenses?(:|$) | Expense \f[R] .fi +.RE +.IP \[bu] 2 +If you declare any account types, it\[aq]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. +.IP \[bu] 2 +Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. +See Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. +.IP \[bu] 2 +As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent +account. +To be precise, an account\[aq]s type is decided by the first of these +that exists: +.RS 2 +.IP "1." 3 +A \f[C]type:\f[R] declaration for this account. +.IP "2." 3 +A \f[C]type:\f[R] declaration in the parent accounts above it, +preferring the nearest. +.IP "3." 3 +An account type inferred from this account\[aq]s name. +.IP "4." 3 +An account type inferred from a parent account\[aq]s name, preferring +the nearest parent. +.IP "5." 3 +Otherwise, it will have no type. +.RE +.IP \[bu] 2 +For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: +.RS 2 +.IP +.nf +\f[C] +$ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] +\f[R] +.fi +.RE .SS Account display order .PP Account directives also set the order in which accounts are displayed, @@ -8139,6 +8194,28 @@ $ hledger print --alias old=\[dq]new USD\[dq] | hledger -f- print other \f[R] .fi +.SS Aliases and account types +.PP +If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account +types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in +effect. +.PP +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. +.PP +Secondly, if an account\[aq]s type is being inferred from its name, +renaming it by an alias could prevent or alter that. +.PP +If you are using account aliases and the \f[C]type:\f[R] query is not +matching accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts +command, eg something like: +.IP +.nf +\f[C] +$ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a +\f[R] +.fi .SS Default parent account .PP You can specify a parent account which will be prepended to all accounts diff --git a/hledger/hledger.info b/hledger/hledger.info index 71f07d040..c6156daa2 100644 --- a/hledger/hledger.info +++ b/hledger/hledger.info @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ hledger(1) 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 1.24.99. +manual is for hledger 1.25.99. 'hledger' @@ -652,8 +652,8 @@ without a lot of declarations: (Commodity error checking) * Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? - You can also use the check command to run these and some additional -checks. + You can use the check command to run individual checks - the ones +listed above and some more.  File: hledger.info, Node: TIME PERIODS, Next: DEPTH, Prev: DATA FILES, Up: Top @@ -1142,11 +1142,24 @@ Match real or virtual postings respectively. *'status:, status:!, status:*'* Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. + *'type:TYPECODES'* +Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). +'TYPECODES' is one or more of the single-letter account type codes +'ALERXCV', case insensitive. Note 'type:A' and 'type:E' will also match +their respective subtypes 'C' (Cash) and 'V' (Conversion). Certain +kinds of account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts +> Aliases and account types. + *'tag:REGEX[=REGEX]'* Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by -value, use 'tag:.=REGEX'.) Note that postings also inherit tags from -their transaction, and transactions also acquire tags from their -postings, when querying. +value, use 'tag:.=REGEX'.) + + When querying by tag, note that: + + * Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts + * Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their + transaction + * Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. (*'inacct:ACCTNAME'* A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells @@ -2351,6 +2364,9 @@ mode you can add '--drop N' to omit the first few account name components. Account names can be depth-clipped with 'depth:N' or '--depth N' or '-N'. + With '--types', it also shows each account's type, if it's known. +(See Declaring accounts > Account types.) + Examples: $ hledger accounts @@ -5997,8 +6013,8 @@ 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 unasserted commodities in the account (or, that their balance is -0). +other commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, +that their balance is 0). 2013/1/1 a $1 @@ -6519,15 +6535,15 @@ declarations can provide several benefits: * They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a reference. + * They control account display order in reports, allowing + non-alphabetic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). * They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, equity, revenue, expense), useful for reports like balancesheet and incomestatement. - * They control account display order in reports, allowing - non-alphabetic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). - * They can store extra information about accounts (account numbers, - notes, etc.) - * They help with account name completion in the add command, - hledger-iadd, hledger-web, ledger-mode etc. + * They can store other account information, as comments or as tags + which can be used to filter reports. + * They help with account name completion (in hledger add, + hledger-web, hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) * In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by transactions, which helps detect typos. @@ -6587,11 +6603,12 @@ Comments, beginning with a semicolon, can be added: An example of both: -account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces before ; +account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces required before ; ; next-line comment - ; another with tag, acctno:12345 (not used yet) + ; some tags, type:A, acctnum:12345 - Same-line comments are not supported by Ledger, or hledger <1.13. + Compatibility note: same-line comments are not supported by Ledger or +hledger <1.13.  File: hledger.info, Node: Account subdirectives, Next: Account types, Prev: Account comments, Up: Declaring accounts @@ -6607,7 +6624,7 @@ account assets:bank:checking Here is the full syntax of account directives: -account ACCTNAME [ACCTTYPE] [;COMMENT] +account ACCTNAME [;type:ACCTTYPE] [COMMENT] [;COMMENTS] [LEDGER-STYLE SUBDIRECTIVES, IGNORED] @@ -6617,72 +6634,86 @@ File: hledger.info, Node: Account types, Next: Account display order, Prev: A 12.25.4 Account types --------------------- -By adding a 'type' tag to the account directive, with value 'A', 'L', -'E', 'R', 'X', 'C', 'V' (or if you prefer: 'Asset', 'Liability', -'Equity', 'Revenue', 'Expense', 'Cash', 'Conversion'), you can declare -hledger accounts to be of a certain type: +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. - * *asset*, *liability*, *equity*, *revenue*, *expense* - the standard types in accounting, or + 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: - * *cash* - a subtype of asset, used for liquid assets. + * 'A' or 'Asset' (things you own) + * 'L' or 'Liability' (things you owe) + * 'E' or 'Equity' (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of + assets & liabilities) + * 'R' or 'Revenue' (what you received money from, AKA income; + technically part of Equity) + * 'X' or 'Expense' (what you spend money on; technically part of + Equity) - * *conversion* - a subtype of equity, used for conversion postings + or, it can be (these are used less often): - Declaring account types is a good idea, since it helps enable the -easy balancesheet, balancesheetequity, incomestatement and cashflow -reports, and probably other things in future. As a convenience, when -account types are not declared, hledger will try to guess them based on -english-language account names. + * 'C' or 'Cash' (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the + cashflow report) + * 'V' or 'Conversion' (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see + CONVERSION & COST).) - Here is a typical set of top-level account declarations (because of -the aforementioned, with these account names the type tags are not -strictly needed, but with non-english or non-standard account names, -they will be): + 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 ; 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 assets:bank ; type: C +account assets:cash ; type: C - It's not necessary to declare the type of subaccounts. (You can, if -they are different from the parent, but this is not common.) +account equity:conversion ; type: V -* Menu: + Here are some tips for working with account types. -* Auto-detected account types:: + * The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. + These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get + going; if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare + your account types. See also Regular expressions. Note the Cash + regexp changed in hledger 1.24.99.2. - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto-detected account types, Up: Account types + 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 -12.25.4.1 Auto-detected account types -..................................... + * 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. -More about "guessing" account types: hledger tries to find at least one -top level account in each of the six account types (Asset, Liability, -Equity, Revenue, Expense, Cash). When no accounts have been declared -for a particular type, it tries to auto-detect some accounts by name, -using the regular expressions below. Note: if you declare any account's -type, it's a good idea to declare an account for all six types, because -a mix of declared and auto-detected types can cause confusing results. + * Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See + Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. - The auto-detection rules are: + * As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their + parent account. To be precise, an account's type is decided by the + first of these that exists: - If account's name matches this case insensitive regular expression:| its type is: -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------ - ^assets?(:|$) | - and does not contain regexp (investment|receivable|:A/R|:fixed) | Cash - otherwise | Asset - ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - ^equity(:|$) | Equity - ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense + 1. A 'type:' declaration for this account. + 2. A 'type:' declaration in the parent accounts above it, + preferring the nearest. + 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. + 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, + preferring the nearest parent. + 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. + + * For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: + + $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES]  File: hledger.info, Node: Account display order, Prev: Account types, Up: Declaring accounts @@ -6765,6 +6796,7 @@ more on this below. * Aliases and multiple files:: * end aliases:: * Aliases can generate bad account names:: +* Aliases and account types::  File: hledger.info, Node: Basic aliases, Next: Regex aliases, Up: Rewriting accounts @@ -6896,7 +6928,7 @@ journal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: end aliases  -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases can generate bad account names, Prev: end aliases, Up: Rewriting accounts +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases can generate bad account names, Next: Aliases and account types, Prev: end aliases, Up: Rewriting accounts 12.26.6 Aliases can generate bad account names ---------------------------------------------- @@ -6926,6 +6958,30 @@ $ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print new USD 1 other + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and account types, Prev: Aliases can generate bad account names, Up: Rewriting accounts + +12.26.7 Aliases and account types +--------------------------------- + +If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account +types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in +effect. + + However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg +renaming parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could +prevent child accounts from inheriting the account type of their +parents. + + Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, +renaming it by an alias could prevent or alter that. + + If you are using account aliases and the 'type:' query is not +matching accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts +command, eg something like: + +$ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a +  File: hledger.info, Node: Default parent account, Next: Periodic transactions, Prev: Rewriting accounts, Up: JOURNAL FORMAT @@ -9404,514 +9460,514 @@ Node: Multiple files19405 Ref: #multiple-files19547 Node: Strict mode20016 Ref: #strict-mode20131 -Node: TIME PERIODS20837 -Ref: #time-periods20954 -Node: Smart dates21052 -Ref: #smart-dates21178 -Node: Report start & end date23008 -Ref: #report-start-end-date23183 -Node: Report intervals24850 -Ref: #report-intervals25018 -Node: Period expressions26757 -Ref: #period-expressions26897 -Node: Period expressions with a report interval28628 -Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval28860 -Node: More complex report intervals29941 -Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals30190 -Node: Intervals with custom start date30825 -Ref: #intervals-with-custom-start-date31057 -Node: Periods or dates ?32631 -Ref: #periods-or-dates32833 -Node: Events on multiple weekdays33275 -Ref: #events-on-multiple-weekdays33454 -Node: DEPTH34317 -Ref: #depth34417 -Node: QUERIES34751 -Ref: #queries34860 -Node: Query types35801 -Ref: #query-types35920 -Node: Combining query terms38592 -Ref: #combining-query-terms38767 -Node: Queries and command options39570 -Ref: #queries-and-command-options39773 -Node: Queries and account aliases40022 -Ref: #queries-and-account-aliases40225 -Node: Queries and valuation40345 -Ref: #queries-and-valuation40538 -Node: Querying with account aliases40767 -Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases40976 -Node: Querying with cost or value41106 -Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value41281 -Node: CONVERSION & COST41582 -Ref: #conversion-cost41715 -Node: Recording conversions42604 -Ref: #recording-conversions42776 -Node: Implicit conversion43228 -Ref: #implicit-conversion43385 -Node: Priced conversion44204 -Ref: #priced-conversion44383 -Node: Equity conversion44791 -Ref: #equity-conversion44975 -Node: Priced equity conversion45763 -Ref: #priced-equity-conversion45935 -Node: Inferring missing conversion rates46283 -Ref: #inferring-missing-conversion-rates46523 -Node: Inferring missing equity postings46639 -Ref: #inferring-missing-equity-postings46870 -Node: Cost reporting47018 -Ref: #cost-reporting47195 -Node: Conversion summary47715 -Ref: #conversion-summary47858 -Node: VALUATION48580 -Ref: #valuation48698 -Node: -V Value49465 -Ref: #v-value49589 -Node: -X Value in specified commodity49784 -Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity49977 -Node: Valuation date50126 -Ref: #valuation-date50288 -Node: Market prices50725 -Ref: #market-prices50907 -Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions52090 -Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions52357 -Node: Valuation commodity53713 -Ref: #valuation-commodity53924 -Node: Simple valuation examples55150 -Ref: #simple-valuation-examples55346 -Node: --value Flexible valuation56005 -Ref: #value-flexible-valuation56207 -Node: More valuation examples57851 -Ref: #more-valuation-examples58058 -Node: Interaction of valuation and queries60057 -Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries60296 -Node: Effect of valuation on reports60768 -Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports60963 -Node: PIVOTING68660 -Ref: #pivoting68765 -Node: OUTPUT70441 -Ref: #output70543 -Node: Output destination70634 -Ref: #output-destination70768 -Node: Output styling71425 -Ref: #output-styling71573 -Node: Output format72330 -Ref: #output-format72474 -Node: CSV output73838 -Ref: #csv-output73956 -Node: HTML output74059 -Ref: #html-output74199 -Node: JSON output74293 -Ref: #json-output74433 -Node: SQL output75350 -Ref: #sql-output75468 -Node: Commodity styles75969 -Ref: #commodity-styles76096 -Node: COMMANDS76872 -Ref: #commands76984 -Node: accounts80349 -Ref: #accounts80449 -Node: activity81145 -Ref: #activity81257 -Node: add81640 -Ref: #add81743 -Node: aregister84536 -Ref: #aregister84650 -Node: aregister and custom posting dates87015 -Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates87181 -Node: balance87733 -Ref: #balance87852 -Node: balance features88845 -Ref: #balance-features88985 -Node: Simple balance report90909 -Ref: #simple-balance-report91091 -Node: Filtered balance report92571 -Ref: #filtered-balance-report92758 -Node: List or tree mode93085 -Ref: #list-or-tree-mode93253 -Node: Depth limiting94598 -Ref: #depth-limiting94764 -Node: Dropping top-level accounts95365 -Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts95567 -Node: Multi-period balance report95877 -Ref: #multi-period-balance-report96090 -Node: Showing declared accounts98365 -Ref: #showing-declared-accounts98558 -Node: Data layout99089 -Ref: #data-layout99244 -Node: Sorting by amount107184 -Ref: #sorting-by-amount107339 -Node: Percentages108009 -Ref: #percentages108167 -Node: Balance change end balance109128 -Ref: #balance-change-end-balance109321 -Node: Balance report types110749 -Ref: #balance-report-types110939 -Node: Useful balance reports115218 -Ref: #useful-balance-reports115399 -Node: Budget report116484 -Ref: #budget-report116668 -Node: Budget report start date121943 -Ref: #budget-report-start-date122121 -Node: Budgets and subaccounts123453 -Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts123660 -Node: Selecting budget goals127100 -Ref: #selecting-budget-goals127272 -Node: Customising single-period balance reports128306 -Ref: #customising-single-period-balance-reports128515 -Node: balancesheet130690 -Ref: #balancesheet130828 -Node: balancesheetequity132127 -Ref: #balancesheetequity132278 -Node: cashflow133658 -Ref: #cashflow133782 -Node: check134928 -Ref: #check135033 -Node: Basic checks135667 -Ref: #basic-checks135785 -Node: Strict checks136336 -Ref: #strict-checks136477 -Node: Other checks136913 -Ref: #other-checks137053 -Node: Custom checks137410 -Ref: #custom-checks137530 -Node: close137947 -Ref: #close138051 -Node: close and prices140142 -Ref: #close-and-prices140271 -Node: close date140666 -Ref: #close-date140850 -Node: Example close asset/liability accounts for file transition141607 -Ref: #example-close-assetliability-accounts-for-file-transition141908 -Node: Hiding opening/closing transactions142767 -Ref: #hiding-openingclosing-transactions143038 -Node: close and balance assertions144415 -Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions144673 -Node: Example close revenue/expense accounts to retained earnings146027 -Ref: #example-close-revenueexpense-accounts-to-retained-earnings146305 -Node: codes147195 -Ref: #codes147305 -Node: commodities148017 -Ref: #commodities148146 -Node: descriptions148228 -Ref: #descriptions148358 -Node: diff148662 -Ref: #diff148770 -Node: files149817 -Ref: #files149919 -Node: help150066 -Ref: #help150168 -Node: import150986 -Ref: #import151102 -Node: Deduplication151967 -Ref: #deduplication152092 -Node: Import testing153986 -Ref: #import-testing154151 -Node: Importing balance assignments154639 -Ref: #importing-balance-assignments154845 -Node: Commodity display styles155494 -Ref: #commodity-display-styles155667 -Node: incomestatement155796 -Ref: #incomestatement155931 -Node: notes157236 -Ref: #notes157351 -Node: payees157719 -Ref: #payees157827 -Node: prices158353 -Ref: #prices158461 -Node: print158830 -Ref: #print158942 -Node: print-unique164310 -Ref: #print-unique164438 -Node: register164723 -Ref: #register164852 -Node: Custom register output169298 -Ref: #custom-register-output169429 -Node: register-match170766 -Ref: #register-match170902 -Node: rewrite171253 -Ref: #rewrite171370 -Node: Re-write rules in a file173276 -Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file173439 -Node: Diff output format174588 -Ref: #diff-output-format174771 -Node: rewrite vs print --auto175863 -Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto176023 -Node: roi176579 -Ref: #roi176679 -Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl178404 -Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl178644 -Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl179132 -Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl179371 -Node: IRR and TWR explained181221 -Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained181381 -Node: stats184467 -Ref: #stats184568 -Node: tags185948 -Ref: #tags186048 -Node: test186567 -Ref: #test186683 -Node: About add-on commands187430 -Ref: #about-add-on-commands187567 -Node: JOURNAL FORMAT188698 -Ref: #journal-format188826 -Node: Transactions191053 -Ref: #transactions191168 -Node: Dates192182 -Ref: #dates192298 -Node: Simple dates192363 -Ref: #simple-dates192483 -Node: Secondary dates192992 -Ref: #secondary-dates193140 -Node: Posting dates194476 -Ref: #posting-dates194599 -Node: Status195971 -Ref: #status196081 -Node: Code197789 -Ref: #code197901 -Node: Description198133 -Ref: #description198261 -Node: Payee and note198581 -Ref: #payee-and-note198689 -Node: Comments199024 -Ref: #comments199146 -Node: Tags200340 -Ref: #tags-1200451 -Node: Postings201844 -Ref: #postings201968 -Node: Virtual postings202994 -Ref: #virtual-postings203105 -Node: Account names204410 -Ref: #account-names204547 -Node: Amounts205035 -Ref: #amounts205172 -Node: Decimal marks digit group marks206157 -Ref: #decimal-marks-digit-group-marks206334 -Node: Commodity207355 -Ref: #commodity207544 -Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display208496 -Ref: #directives-influencing-number-parsing-and-display208757 -Node: Commodity display style209250 -Ref: #commodity-display-style209458 -Node: Rounding211653 -Ref: #rounding211773 -Node: Transaction prices212185 -Ref: #transaction-prices212351 -Node: Lot prices lot dates214782 -Ref: #lot-prices-lot-dates214965 -Node: Balance assertions215453 -Ref: #balance-assertions215631 -Node: Assertions and ordering216664 -Ref: #assertions-and-ordering216846 -Node: Assertions and included files217546 -Ref: #assertions-and-included-files217783 -Node: Assertions and multiple -f options218116 -Ref: #assertions-and-multiple--f-options218366 -Node: Assertions and commodities218498 -Ref: #assertions-and-commodities218724 -Node: Assertions and prices219881 -Ref: #assertions-and-prices220089 -Node: Assertions and subaccounts220529 -Ref: #assertions-and-subaccounts220752 -Node: Assertions and virtual postings221076 -Ref: #assertions-and-virtual-postings221312 -Node: Assertions and precision221454 -Ref: #assertions-and-precision221641 -Node: Balance assignments221908 -Ref: #balance-assignments222078 -Node: Balance assignments and prices223242 -Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices223408 -Node: Directives223632 -Ref: #directives223795 -Node: Directives and multiple files228287 -Ref: #directives-and-multiple-files228483 -Node: Comment blocks229175 -Ref: #comment-blocks229352 -Node: Including other files229528 -Ref: #including-other-files229702 -Node: Default year230626 -Ref: #default-year230784 -Node: Declaring payees231191 -Ref: #declaring-payees231362 -Node: Declaring the decimal mark231608 -Ref: #declaring-the-decimal-mark231808 -Node: Declaring commodities232205 -Ref: #declaring-commodities232396 -Node: Commodity error checking234914 -Ref: #commodity-error-checking235064 -Node: Default commodity235579 -Ref: #default-commodity235759 -Node: Declaring market prices236875 -Ref: #declaring-market-prices237064 -Node: Declaring accounts237877 -Ref: #declaring-accounts238057 -Node: Account error checking239259 -Ref: #account-error-checking239425 -Node: Account comments240604 -Ref: #account-comments240788 -Node: Account subdirectives241212 -Ref: #account-subdirectives241397 -Node: Account types241710 -Ref: #account-types241884 -Node: Auto-detected account types243300 -Ref: #auto-detected-account-types243455 -Node: Account display order244690 -Ref: #account-display-order244850 -Node: Rewriting accounts246001 -Ref: #rewriting-accounts246180 -Node: Basic aliases247190 -Ref: #basic-aliases247326 -Node: Regex aliases248070 -Ref: #regex-aliases248232 -Node: Combining aliases248951 -Ref: #combining-aliases249134 -Node: Aliases and multiple files250410 -Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files250609 -Node: end aliases251188 -Ref: #end-aliases251382 -Node: Aliases can generate bad account names251531 -Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names251740 -Node: Default parent account252325 -Ref: #default-parent-account252515 -Node: Periodic transactions253399 -Ref: #periodic-transactions253582 -Node: Periodic rule syntax255499 -Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax255699 -Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!256403 -Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description256716 -Node: Forecasting with periodic transactions257400 -Ref: #forecasting-with-periodic-transactions257699 -Node: Budgeting with periodic transactions260470 -Ref: #budgeting-with-periodic-transactions260703 -Node: Auto postings261112 -Ref: #auto-postings261248 -Node: Auto postings and multiple files263427 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files263625 -Node: Auto postings and dates263834 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates264102 -Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions264277 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions264622 -Node: Auto posting tags265125 -Ref: #auto-posting-tags265334 -Node: CSV FORMAT265970 -Ref: #csv-format266098 -Node: Examples268727 -Ref: #examples268830 -Node: Basic269038 -Ref: #basic269140 -Node: Bank of Ireland269682 -Ref: #bank-of-ireland269819 -Node: Amazon271281 -Ref: #amazon271401 -Node: Paypal273120 -Ref: #paypal273216 -Node: CSV rules280860 -Ref: #csv-rules280978 -Node: skip281311 -Ref: #skip281411 -Node: fields list281786 -Ref: #fields-list281925 -Node: field assignment283491 -Ref: #field-assignment283643 -Node: Field names284678 -Ref: #field-names284818 -Node: date field285198 -Ref: #date-field285318 -Node: date2 field285366 -Ref: #date2-field285509 -Node: status field285565 -Ref: #status-field285710 -Node: code field285759 -Ref: #code-field285906 -Node: description field285951 -Ref: #description-field286113 -Node: comment field286172 -Ref: #comment-field286329 -Node: account field286640 -Ref: #account-field286792 -Node: amount field287367 -Ref: #amount-field287518 -Node: currency field288763 -Ref: #currency-field288918 -Node: balance field289175 -Ref: #balance-field289309 -Node: separator289681 -Ref: #separator289813 -Node: if block290353 -Ref: #if-block290480 -Node: Matching the whole record290881 -Ref: #matching-the-whole-record291058 -Node: Matching individual fields291861 -Ref: #matching-individual-fields292067 -Node: Combining matchers292291 -Ref: #combining-matchers292489 -Node: Rules applied on successful match292802 -Ref: #rules-applied-on-successful-match292995 -Node: if table293649 -Ref: #if-table293770 -Node: end295508 -Ref: #end295622 -Node: date-format295846 -Ref: #date-format295980 -Node: decimal-mark296976 -Ref: #decimal-mark297123 -Node: newest-first297462 -Ref: #newest-first297605 -Node: include298288 -Ref: #include298421 -Node: balance-type298865 -Ref: #balance-type298987 -Node: Tips299687 -Ref: #tips299778 -Node: Rapid feedback300077 -Ref: #rapid-feedback300196 -Node: Valid CSV300648 -Ref: #valid-csv300780 -Node: File Extension300972 -Ref: #file-extension301126 -Node: Reading multiple CSV files301555 -Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files301742 -Node: Valid 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Recording transactions325785 -Ref: #recording-transactions325967 -Node: Reconciling326523 -Ref: #reconciling326668 -Node: Reporting328925 -Ref: #reporting329067 -Node: Migrating to a new file333066 -Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file333216 -Node: LIMITATIONS333515 -Ref: #limitations333643 -Node: TROUBLESHOOTING334386 -Ref: #troubleshooting334501 +Node: TIME PERIODS20855 +Ref: #time-periods20972 +Node: Smart dates21070 +Ref: #smart-dates21196 +Node: Report start & end date23026 +Ref: #report-start-end-date23201 +Node: Report intervals24868 +Ref: #report-intervals25036 +Node: Period expressions26775 +Ref: #period-expressions26915 +Node: Period expressions with a report interval28646 +Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval28878 +Node: More complex report intervals29959 +Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals30208 +Node: Intervals with custom start date30843 +Ref: #intervals-with-custom-start-date31075 +Node: Periods or dates ?32649 +Ref: #periods-or-dates32851 +Node: Events on multiple weekdays33293 +Ref: #events-on-multiple-weekdays33472 +Node: DEPTH34335 +Ref: #depth34435 +Node: QUERIES34769 +Ref: #queries34878 +Node: Query types35819 +Ref: #query-types35938 +Node: Combining query terms39112 +Ref: #combining-query-terms39287 +Node: Queries and command options40090 +Ref: #queries-and-command-options40293 +Node: Queries and account aliases40542 +Ref: #queries-and-account-aliases40745 +Node: Queries and valuation40865 +Ref: #queries-and-valuation41058 +Node: Querying with account aliases41287 +Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases41496 +Node: Querying with cost or value41626 +Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value41801 +Node: CONVERSION & COST42102 +Ref: #conversion-cost42235 +Node: Recording conversions43124 +Ref: #recording-conversions43296 +Node: Implicit conversion43748 +Ref: #implicit-conversion43905 +Node: Priced conversion44724 +Ref: #priced-conversion44903 +Node: Equity conversion45311 +Ref: #equity-conversion45495 +Node: Priced equity conversion46283 +Ref: #priced-equity-conversion46455 +Node: Inferring missing conversion rates46803 +Ref: #inferring-missing-conversion-rates47043 +Node: Inferring missing equity postings47159 +Ref: #inferring-missing-equity-postings47390 +Node: Cost reporting47538 +Ref: #cost-reporting47715 +Node: Conversion summary48235 +Ref: #conversion-summary48378 +Node: VALUATION49100 +Ref: #valuation49218 +Node: -V Value49985 +Ref: #v-value50109 +Node: -X Value in specified commodity50304 +Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity50497 +Node: Valuation date50646 +Ref: #valuation-date50808 +Node: Market prices51245 +Ref: #market-prices51427 +Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions52610 +Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions52877 +Node: Valuation commodity54233 +Ref: #valuation-commodity54444 +Node: Simple valuation examples55670 +Ref: #simple-valuation-examples55866 +Node: --value Flexible valuation56525 +Ref: #value-flexible-valuation56727 +Node: More valuation examples58371 +Ref: #more-valuation-examples58578 +Node: Interaction of valuation and queries60577 +Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries60816 +Node: Effect of valuation on reports61288 +Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports61483 +Node: PIVOTING69180 +Ref: #pivoting69285 +Node: OUTPUT70961 +Ref: #output71063 +Node: Output destination71154 +Ref: #output-destination71288 +Node: Output styling71945 +Ref: #output-styling72093 +Node: Output format72850 +Ref: #output-format72994 +Node: CSV output74358 +Ref: #csv-output74476 +Node: HTML output74579 +Ref: #html-output74719 +Node: JSON output74813 +Ref: #json-output74953 +Node: SQL output75870 +Ref: #sql-output75988 +Node: Commodity styles76489 +Ref: #commodity-styles76616 +Node: COMMANDS77392 +Ref: #commands77504 +Node: accounts80869 +Ref: #accounts80969 +Node: activity81777 +Ref: #activity81889 +Node: add82272 +Ref: #add82375 +Node: aregister85168 +Ref: #aregister85282 +Node: aregister and custom posting dates87647 +Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates87813 +Node: balance88365 +Ref: #balance88484 +Node: balance features89477 +Ref: #balance-features89617 +Node: Simple balance report91541 +Ref: #simple-balance-report91723 +Node: Filtered balance report93203 +Ref: #filtered-balance-report93390 +Node: List or tree mode93717 +Ref: #list-or-tree-mode93885 +Node: Depth limiting95230 +Ref: #depth-limiting95396 +Node: Dropping top-level accounts95997 +Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts96199 +Node: Multi-period balance report96509 +Ref: #multi-period-balance-report96722 +Node: Showing declared accounts98997 +Ref: #showing-declared-accounts99190 +Node: Data layout99721 +Ref: #data-layout99876 +Node: Sorting by amount107816 +Ref: #sorting-by-amount107971 +Node: Percentages108641 +Ref: #percentages108799 +Node: Balance change end balance109760 +Ref: #balance-change-end-balance109953 +Node: Balance report types111381 +Ref: #balance-report-types111571 +Node: Useful balance reports115850 +Ref: #useful-balance-reports116031 +Node: Budget report117116 +Ref: #budget-report117300 +Node: Budget report start date122575 +Ref: #budget-report-start-date122753 +Node: Budgets and subaccounts124085 +Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts124292 +Node: Selecting budget goals127732 +Ref: #selecting-budget-goals127904 +Node: Customising single-period balance reports128938 +Ref: #customising-single-period-balance-reports129147 +Node: balancesheet131322 +Ref: #balancesheet131460 +Node: balancesheetequity132759 +Ref: #balancesheetequity132910 +Node: cashflow134290 +Ref: #cashflow134414 +Node: check135560 +Ref: #check135665 +Node: Basic checks136299 +Ref: #basic-checks136417 +Node: Strict checks136968 +Ref: #strict-checks137109 +Node: Other checks137545 +Ref: #other-checks137685 +Node: Custom checks138042 +Ref: #custom-checks138162 +Node: close138579 +Ref: #close138683 +Node: close and prices140774 +Ref: #close-and-prices140903 +Node: close date141298 +Ref: #close-date141482 +Node: Example close asset/liability accounts for file transition142239 +Ref: #example-close-assetliability-accounts-for-file-transition142540 +Node: Hiding opening/closing transactions143399 +Ref: #hiding-openingclosing-transactions143670 +Node: close and balance assertions145047 +Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions145305 +Node: Example close revenue/expense accounts to retained earnings146659 +Ref: #example-close-revenueexpense-accounts-to-retained-earnings146937 +Node: codes147827 +Ref: #codes147937 +Node: commodities148649 +Ref: #commodities148778 +Node: descriptions148860 +Ref: #descriptions148990 +Node: diff149294 +Ref: #diff149402 +Node: files150449 +Ref: #files150551 +Node: help150698 +Ref: #help150800 +Node: import151618 +Ref: #import151734 +Node: Deduplication152599 +Ref: #deduplication152724 +Node: Import testing154618 +Ref: #import-testing154783 +Node: Importing balance assignments155271 +Ref: #importing-balance-assignments155477 +Node: Commodity display styles156126 +Ref: #commodity-display-styles156299 +Node: incomestatement156428 +Ref: #incomestatement156563 +Node: notes157868 +Ref: #notes157983 +Node: payees158351 +Ref: #payees158459 +Node: prices158985 +Ref: #prices159093 +Node: print159462 +Ref: #print159574 +Node: print-unique164942 +Ref: #print-unique165070 +Node: register165355 +Ref: #register165484 +Node: Custom register output169930 +Ref: #custom-register-output170061 +Node: register-match171398 +Ref: #register-match171534 +Node: rewrite171885 +Ref: #rewrite172002 +Node: Re-write rules in a file173908 +Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file174071 +Node: Diff output format175220 +Ref: #diff-output-format175403 +Node: rewrite vs print --auto176495 +Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto176655 +Node: roi177211 +Ref: #roi177311 +Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl179036 +Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl179276 +Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl179764 +Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl180003 +Node: IRR and TWR explained181853 +Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained182013 +Node: stats185099 +Ref: #stats185200 +Node: tags186580 +Ref: #tags186680 +Node: test187199 +Ref: #test187315 +Node: About add-on commands188062 +Ref: #about-add-on-commands188199 +Node: JOURNAL FORMAT189330 +Ref: #journal-format189458 +Node: Transactions191685 +Ref: #transactions191800 +Node: Dates192814 +Ref: #dates192930 +Node: Simple dates192995 +Ref: #simple-dates193115 +Node: Secondary dates193624 +Ref: #secondary-dates193772 +Node: Posting dates195108 +Ref: #posting-dates195231 +Node: Status196603 +Ref: #status196713 +Node: Code198421 +Ref: #code198533 +Node: Description198765 +Ref: #description198893 +Node: Payee and note199213 +Ref: #payee-and-note199321 +Node: Comments199656 +Ref: #comments199778 +Node: Tags200972 +Ref: #tags-1201083 +Node: Postings202476 +Ref: #postings202600 +Node: Virtual postings203626 +Ref: #virtual-postings203737 +Node: Account names205042 +Ref: #account-names205179 +Node: Amounts205667 +Ref: #amounts205804 +Node: Decimal marks digit group marks206789 +Ref: #decimal-marks-digit-group-marks206966 +Node: Commodity207987 +Ref: #commodity208176 +Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display209128 +Ref: #directives-influencing-number-parsing-and-display209389 +Node: Commodity display style209882 +Ref: #commodity-display-style210090 +Node: Rounding212285 +Ref: #rounding212405 +Node: Transaction prices212817 +Ref: #transaction-prices212983 +Node: Lot prices lot dates215414 +Ref: #lot-prices-lot-dates215597 +Node: Balance assertions216085 +Ref: #balance-assertions216263 +Node: Assertions and ordering217296 +Ref: #assertions-and-ordering217478 +Node: Assertions and included files218178 +Ref: #assertions-and-included-files218415 +Node: Assertions and multiple -f options218748 +Ref: #assertions-and-multiple--f-options218998 +Node: Assertions and commodities219130 +Ref: #assertions-and-commodities219356 +Node: Assertions and prices220536 +Ref: #assertions-and-prices220744 +Node: Assertions and subaccounts221184 +Ref: #assertions-and-subaccounts221407 +Node: Assertions and virtual postings221731 +Ref: #assertions-and-virtual-postings221967 +Node: Assertions and precision222109 +Ref: #assertions-and-precision222296 +Node: Balance assignments222563 +Ref: #balance-assignments222733 +Node: Balance assignments and prices223897 +Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices224063 +Node: Directives224287 +Ref: #directives224450 +Node: Directives and multiple files228942 +Ref: #directives-and-multiple-files229138 +Node: Comment blocks229830 +Ref: #comment-blocks230007 +Node: Including other files230183 +Ref: #including-other-files230357 +Node: Default year231281 +Ref: #default-year231439 +Node: Declaring payees231846 +Ref: #declaring-payees232017 +Node: Declaring the decimal mark232263 +Ref: #declaring-the-decimal-mark232463 +Node: Declaring commodities232860 +Ref: #declaring-commodities233051 +Node: Commodity error checking235569 +Ref: #commodity-error-checking235719 +Node: Default commodity236234 +Ref: #default-commodity236414 +Node: Declaring market prices237530 +Ref: #declaring-market-prices237719 +Node: Declaring accounts238532 +Ref: #declaring-accounts238712 +Node: Account error checking239936 +Ref: #account-error-checking240102 +Node: Account comments241281 +Ref: #account-comments241465 +Node: Account subdirectives241906 +Ref: #account-subdirectives242091 +Node: Account types242409 +Ref: #account-types242583 +Node: Account display order246257 +Ref: #account-display-order246417 +Node: Rewriting accounts247568 +Ref: #rewriting-accounts247747 +Node: Basic aliases248787 +Ref: #basic-aliases248923 +Node: Regex aliases249667 +Ref: #regex-aliases249829 +Node: Combining aliases250548 +Ref: #combining-aliases250731 +Node: Aliases and multiple files252007 +Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files252206 +Node: end aliases252785 +Ref: #end-aliases252979 +Node: Aliases can generate bad account names253128 +Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names253371 +Node: Aliases and account types253956 +Ref: #aliases-and-account-types254153 +Node: Default parent account254849 +Ref: #default-parent-account255039 +Node: Periodic transactions255923 +Ref: #periodic-transactions256106 +Node: Periodic rule syntax258023 +Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax258223 +Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!258927 +Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description259240 +Node: Forecasting with periodic transactions259924 +Ref: #forecasting-with-periodic-transactions260223 +Node: Budgeting with periodic transactions262994 +Ref: #budgeting-with-periodic-transactions263227 +Node: Auto postings263636 +Ref: #auto-postings263772 +Node: Auto postings and multiple files265951 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files266149 +Node: Auto postings and dates266358 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates266626 +Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions266801 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions267146 +Node: Auto posting tags267649 +Ref: #auto-posting-tags267858 +Node: CSV FORMAT268494 +Ref: #csv-format268622 +Node: Examples271251 +Ref: #examples271354 +Node: Basic271562 +Ref: #basic271664 +Node: Bank of Ireland272206 +Ref: #bank-of-ireland272343 +Node: Amazon273805 +Ref: #amazon273925 +Node: Paypal275644 +Ref: #paypal275740 +Node: CSV rules283384 +Ref: #csv-rules283502 +Node: skip283835 +Ref: #skip283935 +Node: fields list284310 +Ref: #fields-list284449 +Node: field assignment286015 +Ref: #field-assignment286167 +Node: Field names287202 +Ref: #field-names287342 +Node: date field287722 +Ref: #date-field287842 +Node: date2 field287890 +Ref: #date2-field288033 +Node: status field288089 +Ref: #status-field288234 +Node: code field288283 +Ref: #code-field288430 +Node: description field288475 +Ref: #description-field288637 +Node: comment field288696 +Ref: #comment-field288853 +Node: account field289164 +Ref: #account-field289316 +Node: amount field289891 +Ref: #amount-field290042 +Node: currency field291287 +Ref: #currency-field291442 +Node: balance field291699 +Ref: #balance-field291833 +Node: separator292205 +Ref: #separator292337 +Node: if block292877 +Ref: #if-block293004 +Node: Matching the whole record293405 +Ref: #matching-the-whole-record293582 +Node: Matching individual fields294385 +Ref: #matching-individual-fields294591 +Node: Combining matchers294815 +Ref: #combining-matchers295013 +Node: Rules applied on successful match295326 +Ref: #rules-applied-on-successful-match295519 +Node: if table296173 +Ref: #if-table296294 +Node: end298032 +Ref: #end298146 +Node: date-format298370 +Ref: #date-format298504 +Node: decimal-mark299500 +Ref: #decimal-mark299647 +Node: newest-first299986 +Ref: #newest-first300129 +Node: include300812 +Ref: #include300945 +Node: balance-type301389 +Ref: #balance-type301511 +Node: Tips302211 +Ref: #tips302302 +Node: Rapid feedback302601 +Ref: #rapid-feedback302720 +Node: Valid CSV303172 +Ref: #valid-csv303304 +Node: File Extension303496 +Ref: #file-extension303650 +Node: Reading multiple CSV files304079 +Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files304266 +Node: Valid transactions304507 +Ref: #valid-transactions304687 +Node: Deduplicating importing305315 +Ref: #deduplicating-importing305496 +Node: Setting amounts306529 +Ref: #setting-amounts306686 +Node: Amount signs309130 +Ref: #amount-signs309284 +Node: Setting currency/commodity309971 +Ref: #setting-currencycommodity310159 +Node: Amount decimal places311333 +Ref: #amount-decimal-places311525 +Node: Referencing other fields311837 +Ref: #referencing-other-fields312036 +Node: How CSV rules are evaluated312933 +Ref: #how-csv-rules-are-evaluated313108 +Node: TIMECLOCK FORMAT314559 +Ref: #timeclock-format314699 +Node: TIMEDOT FORMAT316760 +Ref: #timedot-format316898 +Node: COMMON TASKS321460 +Ref: #common-tasks321589 +Node: Getting help321996 +Ref: #getting-help322130 +Node: Constructing command lines322691 +Ref: #constructing-command-lines322885 +Node: Starting a journal file323582 +Ref: #starting-a-journal-file323782 +Node: Setting opening balances324970 +Ref: #setting-opening-balances325168 +Node: Recording transactions328309 +Ref: #recording-transactions328491 +Node: Reconciling329047 +Ref: #reconciling329192 +Node: Reporting331449 +Ref: #reporting331591 +Node: Migrating to a new file335590 +Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file335740 +Node: LIMITATIONS336039 +Ref: #limitations336167 +Node: TROUBLESHOOTING336910 +Ref: #troubleshooting337025  End Tag Table diff --git a/hledger/hledger.txt b/hledger/hledger.txt index 4570a3e56..e6c46fad7 100644 --- a/hledger/hledger.txt +++ b/hledger/hledger.txt @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ 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 1.24.99. + manual is for hledger 1.25.99. SYNOPSIS hledger @@ -536,8 +536,8 @@ DATA FILES o Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? - You can also use the check command to run these and some additional - checks. + You can use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones + listed above and some more. TIME PERIODS Smart dates @@ -973,11 +973,25 @@ QUERIES 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.) Note that postings also inherit tags from - their transaction, and transactions also acquire tags from their post- - ings, when querying. + 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 @@ -1530,8 +1544,6 @@ VALUATION Related: #329, #1083. - - Report -B, --cost -V, -X --value=then --value=end --value=DATE, type --value=now ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @@ -1593,6 +1605,7 @@ VALUATION 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- @@ -1603,7 +1616,6 @@ VALUATION 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 @@ -1746,8 +1758,6 @@ OUTPUT 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 @@ -1947,6 +1957,9 @@ COMMANDS 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 @@ -1963,8 +1976,8 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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: @@ -1977,25 +1990,25 @@ COMMANDS add add - Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments + 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- + 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 journal file (if there are multiple -f - FILE options, the first file is used.) Existing transactions are not - changed. This is the only hledger command that writes to the journal + FILE options, the first file is used.) Existing transactions are not + changed. This is the only hledger command that writes to the journal file. 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 + 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 + 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. @@ -2003,10 +2016,10 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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. @@ -2015,7 +2028,7 @@ COMMANDS 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 + o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal supports it. Example (see the tutorial for a detailed explanation): @@ -2045,91 +2058,91 @@ COMMANDS Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) Date [2015/05/22]: $ - On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the + 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 + 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 + (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 + 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, + 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 + 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- + 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 + 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, + 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 + 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 + Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add the -E/--empty flag to show them. - This command also supports the output destination and output format + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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 + 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.. @@ -2180,7 +2193,7 @@ COMMANDS ..with.. - o totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign + o totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign (--invert) o rows and columns swapped (--transpose) @@ -2192,21 +2205,21 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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 @@ -2221,7 +2234,7 @@ COMMANDS 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 + - see below) are hidden by default. Use -E/--empty to show them (revealing assets:bank:checking here): $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E @@ -2236,11 +2249,11 @@ COMMANDS -------------------- 0 - The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless + 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 + 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: @@ -2250,10 +2263,10 @@ COMMANDS $-2 List or tree mode - By default, or with -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat list with + 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' + With -t/--tree, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' "leaf" names indented below their parent: $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance @@ -2273,26 +2286,26 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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, + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -2304,7 +2317,7 @@ COMMANDS 0 Dropping top-level accounts - You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using + 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: @@ -2316,9 +2329,9 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 @@ -2339,21 +2352,21 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -2367,32 +2380,32 @@ COMMANDS o Reduce the terminal's font size - o View with a pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less + 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 + 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 && + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- @@ -2404,11 +2417,11 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + These --layout modes are supported with some but not all of the output formats: @@ -2432,7 +2445,7 @@ COMMANDS ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- || 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- + 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 @@ -2444,7 +2457,7 @@ COMMANDS ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- || 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 + 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 @@ -2464,7 +2477,7 @@ COMMANDS || 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- + 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 @@ -2484,7 +2497,7 @@ COMMANDS || 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 + 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 @@ -2500,10 +2513,10 @@ COMMANDS "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 + 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 + 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 @@ -2525,21 +2538,21 @@ COMMANDS "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 + 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). + 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 + 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 -% @@ -2553,62 +2566,62 @@ COMMANDS || 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 + 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 + 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- + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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] + 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -2619,27 +2632,27 @@ COMMANDS 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- + ues (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price fluctua- tions) - o --gain : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + ties/equity. (default for balancesheet, balancesheetequity, cash- flow) Valuation type: @@ -2652,7 +2665,7 @@ COMMANDS o --value=then[,COMM] : show value at transaction dates - o --value=end[,COMM] : show value at period end date(s) (default with + 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 @@ -2661,13 +2674,13 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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- + o --valuechange makes --change the default when used with the bal- ancesheet/balancesheetequity commands o --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T @@ -2683,18 +2696,16 @@ COMMANDS v ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --change change in period sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - date market val- value of change change in + 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 + 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 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 @@ -2702,25 +2713,25 @@ COMMANDS Some frequently used balance options/reports are: o bal -M revenues expenses - Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the incomes- + 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 + 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. + 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 + 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 + Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average amount. o bal -M --budget expenses @@ -2734,12 +2745,12 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: ;; Budget @@ -2786,26 +2797,26 @@ COMMANDS This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: - o Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, + 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- + 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, + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -2847,12 +2858,12 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -2871,9 +2882,9 @@ COMMANDS --------------++------------ || $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 + 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 @@ -2886,12 +2897,12 @@ COMMANDS || $400 [80% of $500] Budgets and subaccounts - You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you + 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -2901,13 +2912,13 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -2933,9 +2944,9 @@ COMMANDS 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- + 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: @@ -2951,7 +2962,7 @@ COMMANDS -------------------------------++------------------------------- || 0 [ 0] - And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and + And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and consumption: $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty @@ -2970,28 +2981,28 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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. + 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)" @@ -3009,7 +3020,7 @@ COMMANDS 0 The FMT format string (plus a newline) specifies the formatting applied - to each account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with + to each account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data fields interpolated like so: %[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME) @@ -3020,14 +3031,14 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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- + 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) @@ -3036,34 +3047,34 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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 + balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. The asset and liability accounts shown are those accounts declared with - the Asset or Cash or Liability type, or otherwise all accounts under a - top-level asset or liability account (case insensitive, plurals + the Asset or Cash or Liability type, or otherwise all accounts under a + top-level asset or liability account (case insensitive, plurals allowed). Example: @@ -3088,23 +3099,23 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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- + 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 + 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. - The asset, liability and equity accounts shown are those accounts - declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or Equity type, or otherwise + The asset, liability and equity accounts shown are those accounts + declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or Equity type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level asset, liability or equity account (case insensitive, plurals allowed). @@ -3135,24 +3146,24 @@ COMMANDS 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. + 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 + 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- + 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) assets. Amounts are shown with + This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and + outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid) assets. Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - The "cash" accounts shown are those accounts declared with the Cash - type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level asset account (case - insensitive, plural allowed) which do not have fixed, investment, + The "cash" accounts shown are those accounts declared with the Cash + type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level asset account (case + insensitive, plural allowed) which do not have fixed, investment, receivable or A/R in their name. Example: @@ -3172,22 +3183,22 @@ COMMANDS $-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 + 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- + 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 + 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: @@ -3205,27 +3216,27 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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. + 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 + 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 + 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, + 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 @@ -3235,13 +3246,13 @@ COMMANDS o uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique Custom checks - A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in + 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 + o hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / (a forward slash) exist as file paths - o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are + o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are passing You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. See: @@ -3249,38 +3260,38 @@ COMMANDS close close, equity - Prints a sample "closing" transaction bringing specified account bal- - ances to zero, and an inverse "opening" transaction restoring the same + 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 + 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 + 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, + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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). @@ -3288,29 +3299,29 @@ COMMANDS balances (good for troubleshooting). close and prices - Transaction prices are ignored (and discarded) by closing/opening + 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. + 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, + 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) + 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 + -e 2021 equivalent, per smart dates -p 2020 equivalent, the period's begin date is ignored @@ -3338,17 +3349,17 @@ COMMANDS 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. + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -3383,18 +3394,18 @@ COMMANDS # 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 + 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- + 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) + Multi-day transactions (where some postings have a different date) break the balance assertions, because the money is temporarily "invisi- ble" while in transit: @@ -3402,8 +3413,8 @@ COMMANDS 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- + 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: @@ -3417,8 +3428,8 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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: @@ -3431,13 +3442,13 @@ COMMANDS $ 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 + 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 + income statement (using the description; not:'retained earnings' won't work here): $ hledger is -p Q1 not:desc:'closing balances' @@ -3446,13 +3457,13 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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. @@ -3492,7 +3503,7 @@ COMMANDS 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- + in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of trans- actions. Example: @@ -3504,18 +3515,18 @@ COMMANDS diff diff - Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It + 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.) + 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 + 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. @@ -3533,22 +3544,22 @@ COMMANDS files files - List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only - file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -3558,66 +3569,66 @@ COMMANDS import import - Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them - to the main journal file. Or with --dry-run, just print the transac- - tions that would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the + Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them + to the main journal file. Or with --dry-run, just print the transac- + tions that would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' transactions as imported, without actually importing any. - Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an out- + 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 + 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. + 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- + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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 + 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- + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -3627,17 +3638,17 @@ COMMANDS $ 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 + 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 + 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, + (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, please test it and send a pull request.) Commodity display styles @@ -3648,12 +3659,12 @@ COMMANDS incomestatement, is This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and - expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal + expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. The revenue and expense accounts shown are those accounts declared with - the Revenue or Expense type, or otherwise all accounts under a top- - level revenue or income or expense account (case insensitive, plurals + the Revenue or Expense type, or otherwise all accounts under a top- + level revenue or income or expense account (case insensitive, plurals allowed). Example: @@ -3680,22 +3691,22 @@ COMMANDS 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. + 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 + 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- + 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 | + 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: @@ -3708,14 +3719,14 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 | + 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 + You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This implies --used. Example: @@ -3727,11 +3738,11 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are displayed with their full precision. print @@ -3741,17 +3752,17 @@ COMMANDS 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- + 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. + 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 + to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the directives and file-level comments. Eg: @@ -3778,7 +3789,7 @@ COMMANDS liabilities:debts $1 assets:bank:checking $-1 - print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can process + 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: @@ -3788,7 +3799,7 @@ COMMANDS There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable: - o Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or bal- + 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. @@ -3797,32 +3808,32 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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) + 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: @@ -3841,20 +3852,20 @@ COMMANDS "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 + 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 + 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" + 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 + 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 @@ -3878,14 +3889,14 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to see that account's activity: $ hledger register checking @@ -3896,8 +3907,8 @@ COMMANDS With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. - The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from any undisplayed prior - postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to see + 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 @@ -3907,30 +3918,30 @@ COMMANDS The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed. - The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount instead + 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 + 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 --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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -3947,7 +3958,7 @@ COMMANDS 2008/11 0 $-2 2008/12 0 $-2 - Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The --depth + 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 @@ -3955,19 +3966,19 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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: + 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) ----------------------------------> @@ -3983,28 +3994,28 @@ COMMANDS $ 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) + 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- + 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 + 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 + 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- + posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing transac- tion's first posting amount. Examples: @@ -4020,7 +4031,7 @@ COMMANDS (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 + Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the two spaces between account and amount. More: @@ -4030,16 +4041,16 @@ COMMANDS $ 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 + 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- + 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- + 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. @@ -4054,7 +4065,7 @@ COMMANDS budget:gifts *-1 assets:budget *1 - Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in trans- + 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. @@ -4067,12 +4078,12 @@ COMMANDS --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- + 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 + 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' @@ -4096,10 +4107,10 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output from hledger print. See also: @@ -4107,54 +4118,54 @@ COMMANDS https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 rewrite vs. print --auto - This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same + 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 + 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 + 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. + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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: + o Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/invest- ing/roi-unrealised.ledger @@ -4164,27 +4175,27 @@ COMMANDS 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, + 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 + 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 + 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 + "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 + o "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity and any other commodity. Example: @@ -4202,12 +4213,12 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -4224,57 +4235,57 @@ COMMANDS 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- + "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 + 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 + 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. + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of your investment. References: @@ -4285,22 +4296,22 @@ COMMANDS o Explanation of TWR - o Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations + 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -4321,35 +4332,35 @@ COMMANDS Run time : 0.12 s Throughput : 8342 txns/s - This command also supports output destination and output format selec- + This command also supports output destination and output format selec- tion. tags tags - List the unique tag names used in the journal. With a TAGREGEX argu- + List the unique tag names used in the journal. With a TAGREGEX argu- ment, only tag names matching the regular expression (case insensitive) - are shown. With QUERY arguments, only transactions matching the query + are shown. With QUERY arguments, only transactions matching the query are considered. With the --values flag, the tags' unique values are listed instead. - With --parsed flag, all tags or values are shown in the order they are + With --parsed flag, all tags or values are shown in the order they are parsed from the input data, including duplicates. - With -E/--empty, any blank/empty values will also be shown, otherwise + With -E/--empty, any blank/empty values will also be shown, otherwise they are omitted. 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 + 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 + 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 -- @@ -4358,7 +4369,7 @@ COMMANDS $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never - For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- + For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- --help currently doesn't show them). About add-on commands @@ -4366,16 +4377,16 @@ COMMANDS o whose name starts with hledger- - o whose name ends with a recognised file extension: .bat,.com,.exe, + 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 + 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 @@ -4399,17 +4410,17 @@ COMMANDS 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 + 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 + 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. @@ -4417,25 +4428,25 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 *) @@ -4444,11 +4455,11 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -4459,35 +4470,35 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT Dates Simple dates - Dates in the journal file use simple dates format: YYYY-MM-DD or + 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: + 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 + (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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 = + 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 @@ -4501,11 +4512,11 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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) + 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 + 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 @@ -4518,22 +4529,22 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT $ 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 + 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 + [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 + 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, + 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: @@ -4543,23 +4554,23 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT ! pending * cleared - When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked, - -P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and + 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 + 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- + 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 + 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 + 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. + What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you. Here's one suggestion: @@ -4571,41 +4582,41 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + (*) 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. + 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: @@ -4628,24 +4639,24 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT ; 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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- + 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: @@ -4659,57 +4670,57 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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- + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -4721,34 +4732,34 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT [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 + 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- + 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 + 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: + 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- + 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 + to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a separating space: $1 @@ -4756,13 +4767,13 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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- + 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 + One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable when parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): + $1 @@ -4779,8 +4790,8 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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, + 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 @@ -4794,41 +4805,41 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 1,000 1.000 - If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above + 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 + 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. + 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 + 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", + 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 + 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 + 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 + (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. + 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) @@ -4843,48 +4854,48 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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. + 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- + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -4894,22 +4905,22 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT commodity 1000.00000000 BTC commodity 1 000. - The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command + 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 + 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 + 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. @@ -4935,14 +4946,14 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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- + 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 + 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: @@ -4953,8 +4964,8 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT $-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 + 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: @@ -4967,18 +4978,18 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT EUR100 assets:euros Lot prices, lot dates - Ledger allows another kind of price, lot price (four variants: {UNIT- + 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, + 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 + 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 @@ -4990,32 +5001,32 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 + 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- + 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- + 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. + 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 included files - With included files, things are a little more complicated. Including - preserves the ordering of postings and assertions. If you have multi- - ple postings to an account on the same day, split across different - files, and you also want to assert the account's balance on the same + With included files, things are a little more complicated. Including + preserves the ordering of postings and assertions. If you have multi- + ple postings to an account on the same day, split across different + files, and you also want to assert the account's balance on the same day, you'll have to put the assertion in the right file. Assertions and multiple -f options @@ -5023,17 +5034,18 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT -f options. Use include or concatenate the files instead. Assertions and commodities - The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in - fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the - (possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions + 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 + You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other - unasserted commodities in the account (or, that their balance is 0). + commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, that + their balance is 0). 2013/1/1 a $1 @@ -5171,8 +5183,6 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT parsing comment, D, Y Inline extra data files include multiple -f/--file's - - Generate extra transactions or ~ budget goals Generate extra postings = @@ -5458,18 +5468,18 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer- ence. - o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, - equity, revenue, expense), useful for reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement. - o They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alpha- betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). - o They can store extra information about accounts (account numbers, - notes, etc.) + o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, + equity, revenue, expense), useful for reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement. - o They help with account name completion in the add command, hledger- - iadd, hledger-web, ledger-mode etc. + 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. @@ -5516,14 +5526,15 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT An example of both: - account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces before ; + account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, note 2+ spaces required before ; ; next-line comment - ; another with tag, acctno:12345 (not used yet) + ; some tags, type:A, acctnum:12345 - Same-line comments are not supported by Ledger, or hledger <1.13. + 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 + We also allow (and ignore) Ledger-style indented subdirectives, just for compatibility.: account assets:bank:checking @@ -5531,73 +5542,103 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT Here is the full syntax of account directives: - account ACCTNAME [ACCTTYPE] [;COMMENT] + account ACCTNAME [;type:ACCTTYPE] [COMMENT] [;COMMENTS] [LEDGER-STYLE SUBDIRECTIVES, IGNORED] Account types - By adding a type tag to the account directive, with value A, L, E, R, - X, C, V (or if you prefer: Asset, Liability, Equity, Revenue, Expense, - Cash, Conversion), you can declare hledger accounts to be of a certain - type: + 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. - o asset, liability, equity, revenue, expense - the standard types in accounting, or + 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 cash - a subtype of asset, used for liquid assets. + o A or Asset (things you own) - o conversion - a subtype of equity, used for conversion postings + o L or Liability (things you owe) - Declaring account types is a good idea, since it helps enable the easy - balancesheet, balancesheetequity, incomestatement and cashflow reports, - and probably other things in future. As a convenience, when account - types are not declared, hledger will try to guess them based on - english-language account names. + o E or Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets & + liabilities) - Here is a typical set of top-level account declarations (because of the - aforementioned, with these account names the type tags are not strictly - needed, but with non-english or non-standard account names, they will - be): + o R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA income; technically + part of Equity) - account assets ; type: A - account liabilities ; type: L - account equity ; type: E - account revenues ; type: R - account expenses ; type: X + o X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity) - account assets:bank ; type: C - account assets:cash ; type: C + or, it can be (these are used less often): - It's not necessary to declare the type of subaccounts. (You can, if - they are different from the parent, but this is not common.) + o C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cash- + flow report) - Auto-detected account types - More about "guessing" account types: hledger tries to find at least one - top level account in each of the six account types (Asset, Liability, - Equity, Revenue, Expense, Cash). When no accounts have been declared - for a particular type, it tries to auto-detect some accounts by name, - using the regular expressions below. Note: if you declare any - account's type, it's a good idea to declare an account for all six - types, because a mix of declared and auto-detected types can cause con- - fusing results. + o V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see CONVERSION + & COST).) - The auto-detection rules are: + Here is a typical set of account type declarations: - If account's name matches this case insensitive regular expression:| its type is: - ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------ - ^assets?(:|$) | - and does not contain regexp (investment|receivable|:A/R|:fixed) | Cash - otherwise | Asset - ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - ^equity(:|$) | Equity - ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense + 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. To be precise, 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 + 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: @@ -5619,20 +5660,20 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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, + 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 + 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 + 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 + o sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between a:b and a:c). Rewriting accounts @@ -5652,7 +5693,7 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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- + 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- @@ -5662,9 +5703,9 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 @@ -5672,49 +5713,49 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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- + 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, + There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, indicated by the forward slashes: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT or --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT'. - REGEX is a case-insensitive regular expression. Anywhere it matches - inside an account name, the matched part will be replaced by REPLACE- - MENT. If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be ref- + REGEX is a case-insensitive regular expression. Anywhere it matches + inside an account name, the matched part will be replaced by REPLACE- + MENT. If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be ref- erenced by the usual numeric backreferences in REPLACEMENT. Eg: alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 ; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" - Also note that REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command - line, to end of option argument), so it can contain trailing white- + Also note that REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command + line, to end of option argument), so it can contain trailing white- space. Combining aliases - You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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 + 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: @@ -5725,15 +5766,15 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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- + 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 + 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 + 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 @@ -5766,7 +5807,7 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT end aliases Aliases can generate bad account names - Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed 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: @@ -5778,8 +5819,8 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 + 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 @@ -5791,6 +5832,24 @@ JOURNAL FORMAT 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 @@ -6137,6 +6196,7 @@ CSV FORMAT 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 @@ -7843,4 +7903,4 @@ SEE ALSO -hledger-1.24.99 December 2021 HLEDGER(1) +hledger-1.25.99 December 2021 HLEDGER(1)