hledger/hledger/doc/hledger.1.txt
2016-08-04 11:55:46 -07:00

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hledger(1) hledger User Manuals hledger(1)
NAME
hledger - a command-line accounting tool
SYNOPSIS
hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTIONS] [CMDARGS]
hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTIONS] [CMDARGS]
DESCRIPTION
hledger is a cross-platform program for tracking money, time, or any
other commodity, using double-entry accounting and a simple, editable
file format. hledger is inspired by and largely compatible with
ledger(1).
Tested on unix, mac, windows, hledger aims to be a reliable, practical
tool for daily use.
This is hledger's command-line interface (there are also curses and web
interfaces). Its basic function is to read a plain text file describ-
ing financial transactions (in accounting terms, a general journal) and
print useful reports on standard output, or export them as CSV.
hledger can also read some other file formats such as CSV files, trans-
lating them to journal format. Additionally, hledger lists other
hledger-* executables found in the user's $PATH and can invoke them as
subcommands.
hledger reads data from one or more files in hledger journal, time-
clock, timedot, or CSV format specified with -f, or $LEDGER_FILE, or
$HOME/.hledger.journal (on windows, perhaps
C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal). If using $LEDGER_FILE, note this must
be a real environment variable, not a shell variable. You can specify
standard input with -f-.
Transactions are dated movements of money between two (or more) named
accounts, and are recorded with journal entries like this:
2015/10/16 bought food
expenses:food $10
assets:cash
For more about this format, see hledger_journal(5).
Most users use a text editor to edit the journal, usually with an edi-
tor mode such as ledger-mode for added convenience. hledger's interac-
tive add command is another way to record new transactions. hledger
never changes existing transactions.
To get started, you can either save some entries like the above in
~/.hledger.journal, or run hledger add and follow the prompts. Then
try some commands like hledger print or hledger balance. See COMMANDS
and EXAMPLES below.
EXAMPLES
Two simple transactions in hledger journal format:
2015/9/30 gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts
2015/10/16 farmers market
expenses:food $10
assets:cash
Some basic reports:
$ hledger print
2015/09/30 gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts $-20
2015/10/16 farmers market
expenses:food $10
assets:cash $-10
$ hledger accounts --tree
assets
cash
expenses
food
income
gifts
$ hledger balance
$10 assets:cash
$10 expenses:food
$-20 income:gifts
--------------------
0
$ hledger register cash
2015/09/30 gift received assets:cash $20 $20
2015/10/16 farmers market assets:cash $-10 $10
More commands:
$ hledger # show available commands
$ hledger add # add more transactions to the journal file
$ hledger balance # all accounts with aggregated balances
$ hledger balance --help # show detailed help for balance command
$ hledger balance --depth 1 # only top-level accounts
$ hledger register # show account postings, with running total
$ hledger reg income # show postings to/from income accounts
$ hledger reg 'assets:some bank:checking' # show postings to/from this checking account
$ hledger print desc:shop # show transactions with shop in the description
$ hledger activity -W # show transaction counts per week as a bar chart
With the journal
2016/02/16 Member Fee Payment John Doe
assets:bank account 2 EUR
income:member fees -2 EUR
; member: John Doe
the --pivot comand will output the following:
$ hledger bal --pivot member
2 EUR assets:bank account
-2 EUR member:John Doe
OPTIONS
To see general usage and the command list: hledger -h or just hledger.
To see usage for a specific command: hledger COMMAND -h.
hledger has several kinds of options:
o General options are always available and can appear anywhere on the
command line. hledger -h shows these. Eg: hledger --version.
o Common reporting options are available with most commands. These and
all other non-general options must be written after COMMAND.
hledger COMMAND -h shows these. Eg: hledger register --cleared.
o Command-specific options are also provided by some commands.
hledger COMMAND -h shows these too. Eg: hledger register --average.
o Some hledger commands come from separate add-on executables, which
have their own options. hledger COMMAND -h shows these, as usual.
Such options, if not also supported by hledger, should be written
following a double hyphen argument (--) so that hledger's option
parser does not complain. Eg: hledger ui -- --register=checking.
Or, you can just run the add-on directly: hledger-ui --regis-
ter=checking.
Command arguments may also follow the command name. In most cases
these specify a query which filters the data. Command options and
arguments can be intermixed.
Option and argument values containing problematic characters should be
escaped with double quotes, backslashes, or (best) single quotes. This
means spaces, but also characters which are significant to your command
shell, such as less-than/greater-than. Eg: hledger regis-
ter -p 'last year' "accounts receivable (receiv-
able|payable)" amt:\>100.
Characters which are significant to the shell and also in regular
expressions, like parentheses, the pipe symbol and the dollar sign,
must sometimes be double-escaped. Eg, to match the dollar symbol:
hledger balance cur:'\$' or hledger balance cur:\\$.
There's more.. options and arguments being passed by hledger to an
add-on executable get de-escaped once in the process. In this case you
might need triple-escaping. Eg: hledger ui cur:'\\$' or
hledger ui cur:\\\\$.
If in doubt, keep things simple:
o write options after the command
o enclose problematic args in single quotes
o if needed, also add a backslash to escape regexp metacharacters
o run add-on executables directly
If you're really curious, add --debug=2 for troubleshooting.
General options:
-h show general usage (or after COMMAND, the command's usage)
--help show the current program's manual as plain text (or after an
add-on COMMAND, the add-on's manual)
--man show the current program's manual with man
--info show the current program's manual with info
--version
show version
--debug[=N]
show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1)
-f FILE --file=FILE
use a different input file. For stdin, use -
--rules-file=RULESFILE
Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default:
FILE.rules)
--alias=OLD=NEW
display accounts named OLD as NEW
-I --ignore-assertions
ignore any failing balance assertions in the journal
Common reporting options:
-b --begin=DATE
include postings/txns on or after this date
-e --end=DATE
include postings/txns before this date
-D --daily
multiperiod/multicolumn report by day
-W --weekly
multiperiod/multicolumn report by week
-M --monthly
multiperiod/multicolumn report by month
-Q --quarterly
multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter
-Y --yearly
multiperiod/multicolumn report by year
-p --period=PERIODEXP
set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once
(overrides the flags above)
--date2
show, and match with -b/-e/-p/date:, secondary dates instead
-C --cleared
include only cleared postings/txns
--pending
include only pending postings/txns
-U --uncleared
include only uncleared (and pending) postings/txns
-R --real
include only non-virtual postings
--depth=N
hide accounts/postings deeper than N
-E --empty
show items with zero amount, normally hidden
-B --cost
show amounts in their cost price's commodity
--pivot TAG
will transform the journal before any other processing by
replacing the account name of every posting having the tag TAG
with content VALUE by the account name "TAG:VALUE".
The TAG will only match if it is a full-length match. The pivot will
only happen if the TAG is on a posting, not if it is on the transac-
tion. If the tag value is a multi:level:account:name the new account
name will be "TAG:multi:level:account:name".
Multiple files
You can specify multiple -f/--file FILE options. This is like combin-
ing all the files into one, except they can have different formats.
Also directives and aliases in one file do not affect subsequent files
(if you need that, use the include directive instead).
Repeated options
Otherwise, if a reporting option is repeated, the last one takes prece-
dence. Eg -p jan -p feb is equivalent to -p feb.
Depth limiting
With the --depth N option, commands like account, balance and register
will show only the uppermost accounts in the account tree, down to
level N. Use this when you want a summary with less detail.
Smart dates
hledger's user interfaces accept a flexible "smart date" syntax (unlike
dates in the journal file). Smart dates allow some english words, can
be relative to today's date, and can have less-significant date parts
omitted (defaulting to 1).
Examples:
2009/1/1, 2009/01/01, simple dates, several sep-
2009-1-1, 2009.1.1 arators allowed
2009/1, 2009 same as above - a missing
day or month defaults to 1
1/1, january, jan, relative dates, meaning
this year january 1 of the current
year
next year january 1 of next year
this month the 1st of the current
month
this week the most recent monday
last week the monday of the week
before this one
lastweek spaces are optional
today, yesterday, tomorrow
Report intervals
A report interval can be specified so that commands like register, bal-
ance and activity will divide their reports into multiple subperiods.
The basic intervals can be selected with one of -D/--daily,
-W/--weekly, -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, or -Y/--yearly. More com-
plex intervals may be specified with a period expression.
Period expressions
The -p/--period option accepts period expressions, a shorthand way of
expressing a start date, end date, and/or report interval all at once.
Here's a basic period expression specifying the first quarter of 2009.
Note, hledger always treats start dates as inclusive and end dates as
exclusive:
-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
Keywords like "from" and "to" are optional, and so are the spaces, as
long as you don't run two dates together. "to" can also be written as
"-". These are equivalent to the above:
-p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1"
-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1
-p2009/1/1-2009/4/1
Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, the above can
also be written as:
-p "1/1 4/1"
-p "january-apr"
-p "this year to 4/1"
If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the
earliest or latest transaction in your journal:
-p "from 2009/1/1" everything after january
1, 2009
-p "from 2009/1" the same
-p "from 2009" the same
-p "to 2009" everything before january
1, 2009
A single date with no "from" or "to" defines both the start and end
date like so:
-p "2009" the year 2009; equivalent
to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1"
-p "2009/1" the month of jan; equiva-
lent to "2009/1/1 to
2009/2/1"
-p "2009/1/1" just that day; equivalent
to "2009/1/1 to 2009/1/2"
The argument of -p can also begin with, or be, a report interval
expression. The basic report intervals are daily, weekly, monthly,
quarterly, or yearly, which have the same effect as the -D,-W,-M,-Q, or
-Y flags. Between report interval and start/end dates (if any), the
word in is optional. Examples:
-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
-p "monthly in 2008"
-p "quarterly"
The following more complex report intervals are also supported:
biweekly, bimonthly, every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years,
every Nth day [of month], every Nth day of week.
Examples:
-p "bimonthly from 2008"
-p "every 2 weeks"
-p "every 5 days from 1/3"
Show historical balances at end of 15th each month (N is exclusive end
date):
hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day"
Group postings from start of wednesday to end of next tuesday (N is
start date and exclusive end date):
hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week"
Regular expressions
hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places:
o query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form:
REGEX, desc:REGEX, cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX
o CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ...
o account alias directives and options: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT,
--alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT
hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. In
general they:
o are case insensitive
o are infix matching (do not need to match the entire thing being
matched)
o are POSIX extended regular expressions
o also support GNU word boundaries (\<, \>, \b, \B)
o and parenthesised capturing groups and numeric backreferences in
replacement strings
o do not support mode modifiers like (?s)
Some things to note:
o In the alias directive and --alias option, regular expressions must
be enclosed in forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger,
these are not required.
o To match a regular expression metacharacter like $ as a literal char-
acter, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts with the dollar
sign in hledger-web, write cur:\$.
o On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special mean-
ing to the shell and so must be escaped a second time, with single or
double quotes or another backslash. Eg, to match amounts with the
dollar sign from the command line, write cur:'\$' or cur:\\$.
QUERIES
One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on precise
subsets of your data. Most commands accept an optional query expres-
sion, written as arguments after the command name, to filter the data
by date, account name or other criteria. The syntax is similar to a
web search: one or more space-separated search terms, quotes to enclose
whitespace, optional prefixes to match specific fields. Multiple
search terms are combined as follows:
All commands except print: show transactions/postings/accounts which
match (or negatively match)
o any of the description terms AND
o any of the account terms AND
o all the other terms.
The print command: show transactions which
o match any of the description terms AND
o have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND
o have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND
o match all the other terms.
The following kinds of search terms can be used:
REGEX match account names by this regular expression
acct:REGEX
same as above
amt:N, amt:<N, amt:<=N, amt:>N, amt:>=N
match postings with a single-commodity amount that is equal to,
less than, or greater than N. (Multi-commodity amounts are not
tested, and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if
N is preceded by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers
are compared. Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared,
ignoring sign.
code:REGEX
match by transaction code (eg check number)
cur:REGEX
match postings or transactions including any amounts whose cur-
rency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a par-
tial match, use .*REGEX.*). Note, to match characters which are
regex-significant, like the dollar sign ($), you need to prepend
\. And when using the command line you need to add one more
level of quoting to hide it from the shell, so eg do:
hledger print cur:'\$' or hledger print cur:\\$.
desc:REGEX
match transaction descriptions
date:PERIODEXPR
match dates within the specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period
expression (with no report interval). Examples: date:2016,
date:thismonth, date:2000/2/1-2/15, date:lastweek-. If the
--date2 command line flag is present, this matches secondary
dates instead.
date2:PERIODEXPR
match secondary dates within the specified period.
depth:N
match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above
this depth
real:, real:0
match real or virtual postings respectively
status:*, status:!, status:
match cleared, pending, or uncleared/pending transactions
respectively
tag:REGEX[=REGEX]
match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. Note a
tag: query is considered to match a transaction if it matches
any of the postings. Also remember that postings inherit the
tags of their parent transaction.
not: before any of the above negates the match.
Some of these can also be expressed as command-line options (eg depth:2
is equivalent to --depth 2). Generally you can mix options and query
arguments, and the resulting query will be their intersection (perhaps
excluding the -p/--period option).
COMMANDS
hledger provides a number of subcommands; hledger with no arguments
shows a list.
If you install additional hledger-* packages, or if you put programs or
scripts named hledger-NAME in your PATH, these will also be listed as
subcommands.
Run a subcommand by writing its name as first argument (eg
hledger incomestatement). You can also write any unambiguous prefix of
a command name (hledger inc), or one of the standard short aliases dis-
played in the command list (hledger is).
accounts
Show account names.
--tree show short account names, as a tree
--flat show full account names, as a list (default)
--drop=N
in flat mode: omit N leading account name parts
This command lists all account names that are in use (ie, all the
accounts which have at least one transaction posting to them). With
query arguments, only matched account names are shown.
It shows a flat list by default. With --tree, it uses indentation to
show the account hierarchy.
In flat mode you can add --drop N to omit the first few account name
components.
Examples:
$ hledger accounts --tree
assets
bank
checking
saving
cash
expenses
food
supplies
income
gifts
salary
liabilities
debts
$ hledger accounts --drop 1
bank:checking
bank:saving
cash
food
supplies
gifts
salary
debts
$ hledger accounts
assets:bank:checking
assets:bank:saving
assets:cash
expenses:food
expenses:supplies
income:gifts
income:salary
liabilities:debts
activity
Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval.
The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction
counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the
default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions.
$ hledger activity --quarterly
2008-01-01 **
2008-04-01 *******
2008-07-01
2008-10-01 **
add
Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal.
--no-new-accounts
don't allow creating new accounts; helps prevent typos when
entering account names
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.
To use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts. You can add as
many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press
control-d or control-c to exit.
Features:
o add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar recent
transaction (by description) as a template.
o You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments.
o Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry.
o The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, descrip-
tions, dates (yesterday, today, tomorrow). If the input area is
empty, it will insert the default value.
o If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any
bare numbers entered.
o A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date.
o Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount.
o If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to restart the transac-
tion.
o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal
supports it.
Example (see the tutorial for a detailed explanation):
$ hledger add
Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/data/sample.journal
Any command line arguments will be used as defaults.
Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults.
An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates.
An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts.
If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to restart the transaction.
To end a transaction, enter . when prompted.
To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c.
Date [2015/05/22]:
Description: supermarket
Account 1: expenses:food
Amount 1: $10
Account 2: assets:checking
Amount 2 [$-10.0]:
Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
2015/05/22 supermarket
expenses:food $10
assets:checking $-10.0
Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]:
Saved.
Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
Date [2015/05/22]: <CTRL-D> $
balance
Show accounts and their balances. Alias: bal.
--tree show short account names, as a tree
--flat show full account names, as a list (default)
--drop=N
in flat mode: omit N leading account name parts
--format=LINEFORMAT
in single-column balance reports: use this custom line format
--no-elide
in tree mode: don't squash boring parent accounts
-H --historical
in multicolumn mode: show historical ending balances
--cumulative
in multicolumn mode: show accumulated ending balances
-A --average
in multicolumn mode: show a row average column
-T --row-total
in multicolumn mode: show a row total column
-N --no-total
don't show the final total row
-V --value
show amounts as their current market value in their default val-
uation commodity
-o FILE[.FMT] --output-file=FILE[.FMT]
write output to FILE instead of stdout. A recognised FMT suffix
influences the format.
-O FMT --output-format=FMT
select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv.
The balance command displays accounts and balances. It is hledger's
most featureful and most useful command.
$ hledger balance
$-1 assets
$1 bank:saving
$-2 cash
$2 expenses
$1 food
$1 supplies
$-2 income
$-1 gifts
$-1 salary
$1 liabilities:debts
--------------------
0
More precisely, the balance command shows the change to each account's
balance caused by all (matched) postings. In the common case where you
do not filter by date and your journal sets the correct opening bal-
ances, this is the same as the account's ending balance.
By default, accounts are displayed hierarchically, with subaccounts
indented below their parent. "Boring" accounts, which contain a single
interesting subaccount and no balance of their own, are elided into the
following line for more compact output. (Use --no-elide to prevent
this.)
Each account's balance is the "inclusive" balance - it includes the
balances of any subaccounts.
Accounts which have zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts) are
omitted. Use -E/--empty to show them.
A final total is displayed by default; use -N/--no-total to suppress
it:
$ hledger balance -p 2008/6 expenses --no-total
$2 expenses
$1 food
$1 supplies
Flat mode
To see a flat list of full account names instead of the default hierar-
chical display, use --flat. In this mode, accounts (unless
depth-clipped) show their "exclusive" balance, excluding any subaccount
balances. In this mode, you can also use --drop N to omit the first
few account name components.
$ hledger balance -p 2008/6 expenses -N --flat --drop 1
$1 food
$1 supplies
Depth limited balance reports
With --depth N, balance shows accounts only to the specified depth.
This is very useful to show a complex charts of accounts in less
detail. In flat mode, balances from accounts below the depth limit
will be shown as part of a parent account at the depth limit.
$ hledger balance -N --depth 1
$-1 assets
$2 expenses
$-2 income
$1 liabilities
Multicolumn balance reports
With a reporting interval, multiple balance columns will be shown, one
for each report period. There are three types of multi-column balance
report, showing different information:
1. By default: each column shows the sum of postings in that period, ie
the account's change of balance in that period. This is useful eg
for a monthly income statement:
$ hledger balance --quarterly income expenses -E
Balance changes in 2008:
|| 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4
===================++=================================
expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0
expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0
income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0
income:salary || $-1 0 0 0
-------------------++---------------------------------
|| $-1 $1 0 0
2. With --cumulative: each column shows the ending balance for that
period, accumulating the changes across periods, starting from 0 at
the report start date:
$ hledger balance --quarterly income expenses -E --cumulative
Ending balances (cumulative) in 2008:
|| 2008/03/31 2008/06/30 2008/09/30 2008/12/31
===================++=================================================
expenses:food || 0 $1 $1 $1
expenses:supplies || 0 $1 $1 $1
income:gifts || 0 $-1 $-1 $-1
income:salary || $-1 $-1 $-1 $-1
-------------------++-------------------------------------------------
|| $-1 0 0 0
3. With --historical/-H: each column shows the actual historical ending
balance for that period, accumulating the changes across periods,
starting from the actual balance at the report start date. This is
useful eg for a multi-period balance sheet, and when you are showing
only the data after a certain start date:
$ hledger balance ^assets ^liabilities --quarterly --historical --begin 2008/4/1
Ending balances (historical) in 2008/04/01-2008/12/31:
|| 2008/06/30 2008/09/30 2008/12/31
======================++=====================================
assets:bank:checking || $1 $1 0
assets:bank:saving || $1 $1 $1
assets:cash || $-2 $-2 $-2
liabilities:debts || 0 0 $1
----------------------++-------------------------------------
|| 0 0 0
Multi-column balance reports display accounts in flat mode by default;
to see the hierarchy, use --tree.
With a reporting interval (like --quarterly above), the report
start/end dates will be adjusted if necessary so that they encompass
the displayed report periods. This is so that the first and last peri-
ods will be "full" and comparable to the others.
The -E/--empty flag does two things in multicolumn balance reports:
first, the report will show all columns within the specified report
period (without -E, leading and trailing columns with all zeroes are
not shown). Second, all accounts which existed at the report start
date will be considered, not just the ones with activity during the
report period (use -E to include low-activity accounts which would oth-
erwise would be omitted).
The -T/--row-total flag adds an additional column showing the total for
each row.
The -A/--average flag adds a column showing the average value in each
row.
Here's an example of all three:
$ hledger balance -Q income expenses --tree -ETA
Balance changes in 2008:
|| 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 Total Average
============++===================================================
expenses || 0 $2 0 0 $2 $1
food || 0 $1 0 0 $1 0
supplies || 0 $1 0 0 $1 0
income || $-1 $-1 0 0 $-2 $-1
gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 $-1 0
salary || $-1 0 0 0 $-1 0
------------++---------------------------------------------------
|| $-1 $1 0 0 0 0
# Average is rounded to the dollar here since all journal amounts are
Market value
The -V/--value flag converts all the reported amounts to their "current
market value" using their default market price. That is the latest
market price (P directive) found in the journal (or an included file),
for the amount's commodity, dated on or before the report end date.
Unlike Ledger, hledger's -V only uses the market prices recorded with P
directives, ignoring transaction prices recorded as part of posting
amounts (which -B/--cost uses). Using -B and -V together is allowed.
Custom balance output
In simple (non-multi-column) balance reports, you can customise the
output with --format FMT:
$ hledger balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)"
assets $-1
bank:saving $1
cash $-2
expenses $2
food $1
supplies $1
income $-2
gifts $-1
salary $-1
liabilities:debts $1
---------------------------------
0
The FMT format string (plus a newline) specifies the formatting applied
to each account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with
data fields interpolated like so:
%[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME)
o MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional)
o MAX truncates at this width (optional)
o FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of:
o depth_spacer - a number of spaces equal to the account's depth, or
if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces.
o account - the account's name
o total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified
Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how multi-com-
modity amounts are rendered:
o %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default)
o %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned
o %, - render on one line, comma-separated
There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, %(depth_spacer) has no
effect, instead %(account) has indentation built in.
Experimentation may be needed to get pleasing results.
Some example formats:
o %(total) - the account's total
o %-20.20(account) - the account's name, left justified, padded to 20
characters and clipped at 20 characters
o %,%-50(account) %25(total) - account name padded to 50 characters,
total padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on
one line
o %20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account) - the default format for the
single-column balance report
Output destination
The balance, print, register and stats commands can write their output
to a destination other than the console. This is controlled by the
-o/--output-file option.
$ hledger balance -o - # write to stdout (the default)
$ hledger balance -o FILE # write to FILE
CSV output
The balance, print and register commands can write their output as CSV.
This is useful for exporting data to other applications, eg to make
charts in a spreadsheet. This is controlled by the -O/--output-format
option, or by specifying a .csv file extension with -o/--output-file.
$ hledger balance -O csv # write CSV to stdout
$ hledger balance -o FILE.csv # write CSV to FILE.csv
balancesheet
Show a balance sheet. Alias: bs.
--flat show full account names, as a list (default)
--drop=N
in flat mode: omit N leading account name parts
This command displays a simple balance sheet. It currently assumes
that you have top-level accounts named asset and liability (plural
forms also allowed.)
$ hledger balancesheet
Balance Sheet
Assets:
$-1 assets
$1 bank:saving
$-2 cash
--------------------
$-1
Liabilities:
$1 liabilities:debts
--------------------
$1
Total:
--------------------
0
cashflow
Show a cashflow statement. Alias: cf.
--flat show full account names, as a list (default)
--drop=N
in flat mode: omit N leading account name parts
This command displays a simple cashflow statement It shows the change
in all "cash" (ie, liquid assets) accounts for the period. It cur-
rently assumes that cash accounts are under a top-level account named
asset and do not contain receivable or A/R (plural forms also allowed.)
$ hledger cashflow
Cashflow Statement
Cash flows:
$-1 assets
$1 bank:saving
$-2 cash
--------------------
$-1
Total:
--------------------
$-1
help
Show any of the hledger manuals.
The help command displays any of the main hledger man pages. (Unlike
hledger --help, which displays only the hledger man page.) Run it with
no arguments to list available topics (their names are shortened for
easier typing), and run hledger help TOPIC to select one. The output
is similar to a man page, but fixed width. It may be long, so you may
wish to pipe it into a pager. See also info and man.
$ hledger help
Choose a topic, eg: hledger help cli
cli, ui, web, api, journal, csv, timeclock, timedot
$ hledger help cli | less
hledger(1) hledger User Manuals hledger(1)
NAME
hledger - a command-line accounting tool
SYNOPSIS
hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTIONS] [CMDARGS]
hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTIONS] [CMDARGS]
:
incomestatement
Show an income statement. Alias: is.
--flat show full account names, as a list (default)
--drop=N
in flat mode: omit N leading account name parts
This command displays a simple income statement. It currently assumes
that you have top-level accounts named income (or revenue) and expense
(plural forms also allowed.)
$ hledger incomestatement
Income Statement
Revenues:
$-2 income
$-1 gifts
$-1 salary
--------------------
$-2
Expenses:
$2 expenses
$1 food
$1 supplies
--------------------
$2
Total:
--------------------
0
info
Show any of the hledger manuals using info.
The info command displays any of the hledger reference manuals using
the info hypertextual documentation viewer. This can be a very effi-
cient way to browse large manuals. It requires the "info" program to
be available in your PATH.
As with help, run it with no arguments to list available topics (manu-
als).
man
Show any of the hledger manuals using man.
The man command displays any of the hledger reference manuals using
man, the standard documentation viewer on unix systems. This will fit
the text to your terminal width, and probably invoke a pager automati-
cally. It requires the "man" program to be available in your PATH.
As with help, run it with no arguments to list available topics (manu-
als).
print
Show transactions from the journal.
-m STR --match=STR
show the transaction whose description is most similar to STR,
and is most recent
-o FILE[.FMT] --output-file=FILE[.FMT]
write output to FILE instead of stdout. A recognised FMT suffix
influences the format.
-O FMT --output-format=FMT
select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv.
$ hledger print
2008/01/01 income
assets:bank:checking $1
income:salary $-1
2008/06/01 gift
assets:bank:checking $1
income:gifts $-1
2008/06/02 save
assets:bank:saving $1
assets:bank:checking $-1
2008/06/03 * eat & shop
expenses:food $1
expenses:supplies $1
assets:cash $-2
2008/12/31 * pay off
liabilities:debts $1
assets:bank:checking $-1
The print command displays full transactions from the journal file,
tidily formatted and showing all amounts explicitly. The output of
print is always a valid hledger journal, but it does always not pre-
serve all original content exactly (eg directives).
hledger's print command also shows all unit prices in effect, or (with
-B/--cost) shows cost amounts.
The print command also supports output destination and CSV output.
register
Show postings and their running total. Alias: reg.
-H --historical
include prior postings in the running total
-A --average
show a running average instead of the running total (implies
--empty)
-r --related
show postings' siblings instead
-w N --width=N
set output width (default: terminal width or COLUMNS. -wN,M
sets description width as well)
-o FILE[.FMT] --output-file=FILE[.FMT]
write output to FILE instead of stdout. A recognised FMT suffix
influences the format.
-O FMT --output-format=FMT
select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv.
The register command displays postings, one per line, and their running
total. This is typically used with a query selecting a particular
account, to see that account's activity:
$ hledger register checking
2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1
2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2
2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1
2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0
The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from any undisplayed prior
postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to see
only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance:
$ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical
2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2
2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1
2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0
The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed.
The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount instead
of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the average for
the whole report period). This flag implies --empty (see below). It
works best when showing just one account and one commodity.
The --related/-r flag shows the other postings in the transactions of
the postings which would normally be shown.
With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per
interval, aggregating the postings to each account:
$ hledger register --monthly income
2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1
2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2
Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, are
not shown by default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them:
$ hledger register --monthly income -E
2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1
2008/02 0 $-1
2008/03 0 $-1
2008/04 0 $-1
2008/05 0 $-1
2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2
2008/07 0 $-2
2008/08 0 $-2
2008/09 0 $-2
2008/10 0 $-2
2008/11 0 $-2
2008/12 0 $-2
Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The --depth
option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated:
$ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h
2008/01 assets $1 $1
2008/06 assets $-1 0
2008/12 assets $-1 $-1
Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these
will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of
intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full
length and comparable to the others in the report.
Custom register output
register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows.
You can override this by setting the COLUMNS environment variable (not
a bash shell variable) or by using the --width/-w option.
The description and account columns normally share the space equally
(about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a
description width as part of --width's argument, comma-separated:
--width W,D . Here's a diagram:
<--------------------------------- width (W) ---------------------------------->
date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12)
DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA
and some examples:
$ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows)
$ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100
$ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable
$ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize)
$ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40
$ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, and set description width
The register command also supports the -o/--output-file and -O/--out-
put-format options for controlling output destination and CSV output.
stats
Show some journal statistics.
-o FILE[.FMT] --output-file=FILE[.FMT]
write output to FILE instead of stdout. A recognised FMT suffix
influences the format.
$ hledger stats
Main journal file : /src/hledger/data/sample.journal
Included journal files :
Transactions span : 2008-01-01 to 2009-01-01 (366 days)
Last transaction : 2008-12-31 (2333 days ago)
Transactions : 5 (0.0 per day)
Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
Payees/descriptions : 5
Accounts : 8 (depth 3)
Commodities : 1 ($)
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.
The stats command also supports -o/--output-file for controlling output
destination.
test
Run built-in unit tests.
$ hledger test
Cases: 74 Tried: 74 Errors: 0 Failures: 0
This command runs hledger's built-in unit tests and displays a quick
report. With a regular expression argument, it selects only tests with
matching names. It's mainly used in development, but it's also nice to
be able to check your hledger executable for smoke at any time.
ADD-ON COMMANDS
Add-on commands are executables in your PATH whose name starts with
hledger- and ends with any of these file extensions: none,
.hs,.lhs,.pl,.py,.rb,.rkt,.sh,.bat,.com,.exe. Also, an add-on's name
may not be the same as any built-in command or alias.
hledger will detect these and include them in the command list and let
you invoke them with hledger ADDONCMD. However there are some limita-
tions:
o Options appearing before ADDONCMD will be visible only to hledger and
will not be passed to the add-on. Eg: hledger -h web shows hledger's
usage, hledger web -h shows hledger-web's usage.
o Options understood only by the add-on must go after a -- argument to
hide them from hledger, which would otherwise reject them. Eg:
hledger web -- --server.
Sometimes it may be more convenient to just run the add-on directly,
eg: hledger-web --server.
Add-ons which are written in haskell can take advantage of the
hledger-lib library for journal parsing, reporting, command-line
options, etc.
Here are some hledger add-ons available from Hackage, the extra direc-
tory in the hledger source, or elsewhere:
api
Web API server, see hledger-api.
autosync
Download OFX bank data and/or convert OFX to hledger journal format.
$ hledger autosync --help
usage: hledger-autosync [-h] [-m MAX] [-r] [-a ACCOUNT] [-l LEDGER] [-i INDENT]
[--initial] [--fid FID] [--assertions] [-d] [--hledger]
[--slow] [--which]
[PATH]
Synchronize ledger.
positional arguments:
PATH do not sync; import from OFX file
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-m MAX, --max MAX maximum number of days to process
-r, --resync do not stop until max days reached
-a ACCOUNT, --account ACCOUNT
set account name for import
-l LEDGER, --ledger LEDGER
specify ledger file to READ for syncing
-i INDENT, --indent INDENT
number of spaces to use for indentation
--initial create initial balance entries
--fid FID pass in fid value for OFX files that do not supply it
--assertions create balance assertion entries
-d, --debug enable debug logging
--hledger force use of hledger (on by default if invoked as hledger-
autosync)
--slow use slow, but possibly more robust, method of calling ledger
(no subprocess)
--which display which version of ledger/hledger/ledger-python will
be used by ledger-autosync to check for previous
transactions
$ head acct1.ofx
OFXHEADER:100
DATA:OFXSGML
VERSION:102
SECURITY:NONE
ENCODING:USASCII
CHARSET:1252
COMPRESSION:NONE
OLDFILEUID:NONE
NEWFILEUIDe:8509488b59d1bb45
$ hledger autosync acct1.ofx
2013/08/30 MONTHLY SERVICE FEE
; ofxid: 3000.4303001832.201308301
WF:4303001832 -$6.00
[assets:business:bank:wf:bchecking:banking] $6.00
ledger-autosync, which includes a hledger-autosync alias, downloads
transactions from your bank(s) via OFX, and prints just the new ones as
journal entries which you can add to your journal. It can also operate
on .OFX files which you've downloaded manually. It can be a nice
alternative to hledger's built-in CSV reader, especially if your bank
supports OFX download.
diff
Show transactions present in one journal file but not another
$ hledger diff --help
Usage: hledger-diff account:name left.journal right.journal
$ cat a.journal
1/1
(acct:one) 1
$ cat b.journal
1/1
(acct:one) 1
2/2
(acct:two) 2
$ hledger diff acct:two a.journal b.journal
Unmatched transactions in the first journal:
Unmatched transactions in the second journal:
2015/02/02
(acct:two) $2
hledger-diff compares two journal files. Given an account name, it
prints out the transactions affecting that account which are in one
journal file but not in the other. This can be useful for reconciling
existing journals with bank statements.
equity
Print a journal entry that resets account balances to zero.
$ hledger balance --flat -E assets liabilities
0 assets:bank:checking
$1 assets:bank:saving
$-2 assets:cash
$1 liabilities:debts
--------------------
0
$ hledger equity assets liabilities
2015/05/23
assets:bank:saving $-1
assets:cash $2
liabilities:debts $-1
equity:closing balances 0
2015/05/23
assets:bank:saving $1
assets:cash $-2
liabilities:debts $1
equity:opening balances 0
This prints a journal entry which zeroes out the specified accounts (or
all accounts) with a transfer to/from "equity:closing balances" (like
Ledger's equity command). Also, it prints an similar entry with oppo-
site sign for restoring the balances from "equity:opening balances".
These can be useful for ending one journal file and starting a new one,
respectively. By zeroing your asset and liability accounts at the end
of a file and restoring them at the start of the next one, you will see
correct asset/liability balances whether you run hledger on just one
file, or on several files concatenated with include.
interest
Generate interest transactions.
$ hledger interest --help
Usage: hledger-interest [OPTION...] ACCOUNT
-h --help print this message and exit
-V --version show version number and exit
-v --verbose echo input ledger to stdout (default)
-q --quiet don't echo input ledger to stdout
--today compute interest up until today
-f FILE --file=FILE input ledger file (pass '-' for stdin)
-s ACCOUNT --source=ACCOUNT interest source account
-t ACCOUNT --target=ACCOUNT interest target account
--act use 'act' day counting convention
--30-360 use '30/360' day counting convention
--30E-360 use '30E/360' day counting convention
--30E-360isda use '30E/360isda' day counting convention
--constant=RATE constant interest rate
--annual=RATE annual interest rate
--bgb288 compute interest according to German BGB288
--ing-diba compute interest according for Ing-Diba Tagesgeld account
$ cat interest.journal
2008/09/26 Loan
Assets:Bank EUR 10000.00
Liabilities:Bank
2008/11/27 Payment
Assets:Bank EUR -3771.12
Liabilities:Bank
2009/05/03 Payment
Assets:Bank EUR -1200.00
Liabilities:Bank
2010/12/10 Payment
Assets:Bank EUR -3700.00
Liabilities:Bank
$ hledger interest -- -f interest.journal --source=Expenses:Interest \
--target=Liabilities:Bank --30-360 --annual=0.05 Liabilities:Bank
2008/09/26 Loan
Assets:Bank EUR 10000.00
Liabilities:Bank EUR -10000.00
2008/11/27 0.05% interest for EUR -10000.00 over 61 days
Liabilities:Bank EUR -84.72
Expenses:Interest EUR 84.72
2008/11/27 Payment
Assets:Bank EUR -3771.12
Liabilities:Bank EUR 3771.12
2008/12/31 0.05% interest for EUR -6313.60 over 34 days
Liabilities:Bank EUR -29.81
Expenses:Interest EUR 29.81
2009/05/03 0.05% interest for EUR -6343.42 over 123 days
Liabilities:Bank EUR -108.37
Expenses:Interest EUR 108.37
2009/05/03 Payment
Assets:Bank EUR -1200.00
Liabilities:Bank EUR 1200.00
2009/12/31 0.05% interest for EUR -5251.78 over 238 days
Liabilities:Bank EUR -173.60
Expenses:Interest EUR 173.60
2010/12/10 0.05% interest for EUR -5425.38 over 340 days
Liabilities:Bank EUR -256.20
Expenses:Interest EUR 256.20
2010/12/10 Payment
Assets:Bank EUR -3700.00
Liabilities:Bank EUR 3700.00
hledger-interest computes interests for a given account. Using command
line flags, the program can be configured to use various schemes for
day-counting, such as act/act, 30/360, 30E/360, and 30/360isda. Fur-
thermore, it supports a (small) number of interest schemes, i.e.
annual interest with a fixed rate and the scheme mandated by the German
BGB288 (Basiszins fr Verbrauchergeschfte). See the package page for
more.
irr
Calculate internal rate of return.
$ hledger irr --help
Usage: hledger-irr [OPTION...]
-h --help print this message and exit
-V --version show version number and exit
-c --cashflow also show all revant transactions
-f FILE --file=FILE input ledger file (pass '-' for stdin)
-i ACCOUNT --investment-account=ACCOUNT investment account
-t ACCOUNT --interest-account=ACCOUNT interest/gain/fees/losses account
-b DATE --begin=DATE calculate interest from this date
-e DATE --end=DATE calculate interest until this date
-D --daily calculate interest for each day
-W --weekly calculate interest for each week
-M --monthly calculate interest for each month
-Y --yearly calculate interest for each year
$ cat irr.journal
2011-01-01 Some wild speculation - I wonder if it pays off
Speculation 100.00
Cash
2011-02-01 More speculation (and adjustment of value)
Cash -10.00
Rate Gain -1.00
Speculation
2011-03-01 Lets pull out some money (and adjustment of value)
Cash 30.00
Rate Gain -3.00
Speculation
2011-04-01 More speculation (and it lost some money!)
Cash -50.00
Rate Gain 5.00
Speculation
2011-05-01 Getting some money out (and adjustment of value)
Speculation -44.00
Rate Gain - 3.00
Cash
2011-06-01 Emptying the account (after adjusting the value)
Speculation -85.00
Cash 90.00
Rate Gain - 5.00
$ hledger-irr -f irr.journal -t "Rate Gain" -i Speculation --monthly
2011/01/01 - 2011/02/01: 12.49%
2011/02/01 - 2011/03/01: 41.55%
2011/03/01 - 2011/04/01: -51.44%
2011/04/01 - 2011/05/01: 32.24%
2011/05/01 - 2011/06/01: 95.92%
hledger-irr computes the internal rate of return, also known as the
effective interest rate, of a given investment. After specifying what
account holds the investment, and what account stores the gains (or
losses, or fees, or cost), it calculates the hypothetical annual rate
of fixed rate investment that would have provided the exact same cash
flow. See the package page for more.
print-unique
Print only only journal entries which have a unique description.
$ cat unique.journal
1/1 test
(acct:one) 1
2/2 test
(acct:two) 2
$ LEDGER_FILE=unique.journal hledger print-unique
(-f option not supported)
2015/01/01 test
(acct:one) 1
rewrite
Prints all journal entries, adding specified custom postings to matched
entries.
hledger-rewrite.hs, in hledger's extra directory (compilation
optional), adds postings to existing transactions, optionally with an
amount based on the existing transaction's first amount. See the
script for more details.
$ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ...
$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33'
$ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"'
ui
Curses-style interface, see hledger-ui.
web
Web interface, see hledger-web.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Run-time problems
Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and
remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug
tracker):
Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found"
stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should
be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems,
that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively.
I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file
LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell
variable. The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may
need to use export. Here's an explanation.
"Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide
character" errors
In order to handle non-ascii letters and symbols (like ), hledger needs
an appropriate locale. This is usually configured system-wide; you can
also configure it temporarily. The locale may need to be one that sup-
ports UTF-8, if you built hledger with GHC < 7.2 (or possibly always,
I'm not sure yet).
Here's an example of setting the locale temporarily, on ubuntu
gnu/linux:
$ file my.journal
my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # <- the file is UTF8-encoded
$ locale -a
C
en_US.utf8 # <- a UTF8-aware locale is available
POSIX
$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # <- use it for this command
Here's one way to set it permanently, there are probably better ways:
$ echo "export LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >>~/.bash_profile
$ bash --login
If we preferred to use eg fr_FR.utf8, we might have to install that
first:
$ apt-get install language-pack-fr
$ locale -a
C
en_US.utf8
fr_BE.utf8
fr_CA.utf8
fr_CH.utf8
fr_FR.utf8
fr_LU.utf8
POSIX
$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print
Note some platforms allow variant locale spellings, but not all (ubuntu
accepts fr_FR.UTF8, mac osx requires exactly fr_FR.UTF-8).
Known limitations
Command line interface
Add-on command options, unless they are also understood by the main
hledger executable, must be written after --, like this:
hledger web -- --server
Differences from Ledger
Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See file format
differences.
hledger is slower than Ledger, and uses more memory, on large data
files.
Windows limitations
In a windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are not sup-
ported.
In a windows Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in
hledger add.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the
full terminal width.
LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. Default:
~/.hledger.journal (on windows, perhaps C:/Users/USER/.hledger.jour-
nal).
FILES
Reads data from one or more files in hledger journal, timeclock, time-
dot, or CSV format specified with -f, or $LEDGER_FILE, or
$HOME/.hledger.journal (on windows, perhaps
C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal).
BUGS
The need to precede options with -- when invoked from hledger is awk-
ward.
hledger can't render non-ascii characters when run from a Windows com-
mand prompt (up to Windows 7 at least).
When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale
must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX,
set LANG to something other than C.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger IRC channel
or hledger mail list)
AUTHORS
Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> and contributors
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2007-2016 Simon Michael.
Released under GNU GPL v3 or later.
SEE ALSO
hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), hledger-api(1),
hledger_csv(5), hledger_journal(5), hledger_timeclock(5), hledger_time-
dot(5), ledger(1)
http://hledger.org
hledger 0.28 May 2016 hledger(1)