12 KiB
balance
Show accounts and their balances. Alias: bal.
--change- show balance change in each period (default)
--cumulative- show balance change accumulated across periods (in multicolumn reports)
-H --historical- show historical ending balance in each period (includes postings before report start date)
--tree- show accounts as a tree; amounts include subaccounts (default in simple reports)
--flat- show accounts as a list; amounts exclude subaccounts except when account is depth-clipped (default in multicolumn reports)
-A --average- show a row average column (in multicolumn mode)
-T --row-total- show a row total column (in multicolumn mode)
-N --no-total- don’t show the final total row
--drop=N- omit N leading account name parts (in flat mode)
--no-elide- don’t squash boring parent accounts (in tree mode)
--format=LINEFORMAT- in single-column balance reports: use this custom line format
-O FMT --output-format=FMT- select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv.
-o FILE --output-file=FILE- write output to FILE. A file extension matching one of the above formats selects that format.
--pretty-tables- Use unicode to display prettier tables.
The balance command displays accounts and balances. It is hledger’s most featureful and versatile 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 balances, 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. Eliding of boring accounts is not yet supported in
multicolumn reports.)
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
hierarchical 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:
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 $1 0 0With
--cumulative: each column shows the ending balance for that period, accumulating the changes across periods, starting from 0 at the report start date:$ 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 -------------------++------------------------------------------------- || $-1 0 0 0With
--historical/-H: each column shows the actual historical ending balance for that period, accumulating the changes across periods, starting from the actual balance at the report start date. This is useful eg for a multi-period balance sheet, and when you are showing only the data after a certain start date:$ 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 periods will be “full” and comparable to the others.
The -E/--empty flag does two things in multicolumn
balance reports: first, the report will show all columns within the
specified report period (without -E, leading and trailing columns with
all zeroes are not shown). Second, all accounts which existed at the
report start date will be considered, not just the ones with activity
during the report period (use -E to include low-activity accounts which
would otherwise would be omitted).
The -T/--row-total flag adds an additional column
showing the total for each row.
The -A/--average flag adds a column showing the average
value in each row.
Here’s an example of all three:
$ 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
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)
MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional)
MAX truncates at this width (optional)
FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of:
depth_spacer- a number of spaces equal to the account’s depth, or if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces.account- the account’s nametotal- the account’s balance/posted total, right justified
Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how multi-commodity amounts are rendered:
%_- render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default)%^- render on multiple lines, top-aligned%,- render on one line, comma-separated
There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode,
%(depth_spacer) has no effect, instead
%(account) has indentation built in. Experimentation may be needed to get pleasing results.
Some example formats:
%(total)- the account’s total%-20.20(account)- the account’s name, left justified, padded to 20 characters and clipped at 20 characters%,%-50(account) %25(total)- account name padded to 50 characters, total padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on one line%20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account)- the default format for the single-column balance report
Colour support
The balance command shows negative amounts in red, if:
- the
TERMenvironment variable is not set todumb - the output is not being redirected or piped anywhere
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