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hledger manual
==============
This is the official hledger manual. You may also want to visit
the http://hledger.org home page,
the `hledger for techies`_ page,
and perhaps `c++ ledger's manual`_ (but don't worry, we'll link to that below.)
A tip: on hledger.org, these docs are also available with .pdf suffix.
User Guide
----------
Introduction
............
hledger is a program for tracking money, time, or any other commodity,
using a plain text file format and the simple but powerful principles of
double-entry accounting.
It is modelled closely on `John Wiegley's ledger`_ (aka "c++ ledger"),
with some features removed and some new ones added. I wrote hledger
because I wanted to build financial tools in the Haskell programming
language rather than in C++.
hledger's basic function is to generate register and balance reports from
a plain text ledger file, at the command line or via the web or curses
interface. You can use it to, eg,
- track spending and income
- see time reports by day/week/month/project
- get accurate numbers for client billing and tax filing
- track invoices
hledger aims to help both computer experts and every-day users gain clarity in their finances and time management.
For now though, it is most useful to technically-minded folks who are comfortable with command-line tools.
hledger is copyright (c) 2007-2009 Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> and
contributors and released as Free Software under GPL version 3 or later.
Installing
..........
hledger works on all major platforms. One of these pre-built binaries_ might work for you.
If not, please `report the problem <http://hledger.org/README2.html#support>`_, then
install the `Haskell Platform`_ and type::
cabal update
cabal install hledger
You can add some options to the install command to include extra features:
- Add ``-fvty`` to build the `ui <#ui>`_ command. This is not available on microsoft windows.
- Add ``-fweb`` to build the `web <#web>`_ command.
- Add ``-fchart`` to build the `chart <#chart>`_ command. This requires
gtk2hs_, which you'll need to install yourself as it's not yet provided
by the haskell platform or cabal.
Here are some issues that have been encountered, with workarounds:
- In some cases, cabal install can fail with a compilation or link error
due to incompatible package versions. You can sometimes work around this
by specifying versions manually. Eg here's a recipe for haskell platform
2009.2.0.2 on MS Windows::
cabal install hledger -fweb --constraint="haskell-src-meta < 0.0.6" --constraint="syb-with-class < 0.6.1"
- A ghc panic while building might be due to http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/3862
Basic usage
...........
hledger looks for your ledger file at ~/.ledger by default. To use a
different file, specify it with the LEDGER environment variable or -f
option (which may be - for standard input). Basic usage is::
hledger [OPTIONS] [COMMAND [PATTERNS]]
COMMAND is one of balance, print, register, ui, web, test (defaulting to
balance). PATTERNS are zero or more regular expressions used to filter by
account name or transaction description. Here are some commands to try
(after downloading sample.ledger_)::
export LEDGER=sample.ledger
hledger --help # show usage & options
hledger balance # all accounts with aggregated balances
hledger bal --depth 1 # only top-level accounts
hledger register # transaction register
hledger reg income # transactions to/from an income account
hledger reg checking # checking transactions
hledger reg desc:shop # transactions with shop in the description
hledger histogram # transactions per day, or other interval
hledger ui # curses ui, if installed with -fvty
hledger web # web ui, if installed with -fweb
hledger chart # make a balance chart, if installed with -fchart
hledger -f new.ledger add # record transactions from the command line
Reference
---------
Feature overview
................
This version of hledger mimics a subset of ledger 3.x, and adds some
features of its own. We currently support regular ledger entries, timelog
entries, multiple commodities, price history (for fixed-rate
transactions), virtual postings, filtering by account and description, the
familiar print, register & balance commands and several new commands. We
handle (almost) the full period expression syntax, and very limited
display expressions consisting of a simple date predicate.
Here is the command-line help::
$ hledger --help
Usage: hledger [OPTIONS] [COMMAND [PATTERNS]]
hours [OPTIONS] [COMMAND [PATTERNS]]
hledger convert CSVFILE
hledger uses your ~/.ledger or $LEDGER file (or another specified with -f),
while hours uses your ~/.timelog or $TIMELOG file.
COMMAND is one of (may be abbreviated):
add - prompt for new transactions and add them to the ledger
balance - show accounts, with balances
convert - read CSV bank data and display in ledger format
histogram - show a barchart of transactions per day or other interval
print - show transactions in ledger format
register - show transactions as a register with running balance
stats - show various statistics for a ledger
ui - run a simple text-based UI
web - run a simple web-based UI
chart - generate a balances pie chart
test - run self-tests
PATTERNS are regular expressions which filter by account name.
Prefix with desc: to filter by transaction description instead.
Prefix with not: to negate a pattern. When using both, not: comes last.
DATES can be y/m/d or ledger-style smart dates like "last month".
Options:
-f FILE --file=FILE use a different ledger/timelog file; - means stdin
--no-new-accounts don't allow to create new accounts
-b DATE --begin=DATE report on transactions on or after this date
-e DATE --end=DATE report on transactions before this date
-p EXPR --period=EXPR report on transactions during the specified period
and/or with the specified reporting interval
-C --cleared report only on cleared transactions
-U --uncleared report only on uncleared transactions
-B --cost, --basis report cost of commodities
--depth=N hide accounts/transactions deeper than this
-d EXPR --display=EXPR show only transactions matching EXPR (where
EXPR is 'dOP[DATE]' and OP is <, <=, =, >=, >)
--effective use transactions' effective dates, if any
-E --empty show empty/zero things which are normally elided
-R --real report only on real (non-virtual) transactions
--no-total balance report: hide the final total
-W --weekly register report: show weekly summary
-M --monthly register report: show monthly summary
-Q --quarterly register report: show quarterly summary
-Y --yearly register report: show yearly summary
-h --help show this help
-V --version show version information
-v --verbose show verbose test output
--binary-filename show the download filename for this hledger build
--debug show extra debug output; implies verbose
--debug-no-ui run ui commands with no output
-o FILE --output=FILE chart: output filename (default: hledger.png)
--items=N chart: number of accounts to show (default: 10)
--size=WIDTHxHEIGHT chart: image size (default: 600x400)
File format
...........
hledger's data file (aka "the ledger") is a readable plain text
representation of an accounting journal. The format is mostly identical
with c++ ledger's. Here's an example::
; A sample ledger file.
2008/01/01 income
assets:bank:checking $1
income:salary
2008/06/01 gift
assets:bank:checking $1
income:gifts
2008/06/02 save
assets:bank:saving $1
assets:bank:checking
2008/06/03 * eat & shop
expenses:food $1
expenses:supplies $1
assets:cash
2008/12/31 * pay off
liabilities:debts $1
assets:bank:checking
Each transaction has a date, description, and two or more postings (of
some amount to some account) which must balance to 0. As a convenience,
the last posting's amount may be left blank and will be inferred.
Other c++ ledger features like effective dates, comments, and prices
are also supported. Some additional features like modifier and periodic
entries are accepted, but ignored.
Compatibility
"""""""""""""
Compared to c++ ledger, hledger's file format has some omissions (we do
not support all the latest ledger 3 syntax like @@ and {}) and some subtle
punctuation differences (eg comments may be permissible in different
places.)
Generally, as long as you avoid the more esoteric syntax, your ledger
files will work with both hledger and c++ ledger (or, it will be easy to
restore compatibility by making small adjustments.)
Commands
........
Reporting commands
""""""""""""""""""
print
'''''
The print command displays full transactions from the ledger file, tidily
formatted and showing all amounts explicitly. The output of print is
always valid ledger data.
hledger's print command also shows all unit prices in effect, or
(with -B/--cost) shows cost amounts.
register
''''''''
The register command displays postings, one per line, and their running total.
balance
'''''''
The balance command displays accounts and their balances.
chart
'''''
The chart command saves a pie chart of your top account balances to a
file (usually "hledger.png", or use -o/--output FILE). You can adjust the
image resolution with --size=WIDTHxHEIGHT, and the number of accounts with
--items=N.
Note that positive and negative balances will not be displayed together in
the same chart; any balances not matching the sign of the first one will
be omitted.
To show only accounts above a certain depth, use the --depth option.
Otherwise, the chart can include accounts at any depth. If a parent and
child account are both displayed, the parent's balance excludes the child's.
Examples::
$ hledger chart assets --depth 2
$ hledger chart liabilities --depth 2
$ hledger chart ^expenses -o balance.png --size 1000x600 --items 20
$ for y in 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010; do hledger -f $y.ledger chart ^expenses --depth 2 -o expenses-$y.png; done
histogram
'''''''''
The histogram command displays a quick bar chart showing transaction
counts, per day, week, month or other reporting interval. It is
experimental.
stats
'''''
The stats command displays quick summary information for the ledger.
ui
'''
The ui command starts hledger's text-based "curses" interface, which
allows interactive navigation of the print/register/balance reports.
Modifying commands
""""""""""""""""""
add
'''
The add command prompts interactively for new transactions, and adds them
to the ledger. It is experimental.
web
'''
The web command starts hledger's web interface, and tries to open a web
browser to view it (if this fails, you'll have to visit the indicated url
yourself.) The web ui combines the features of the print, register,
balance and add commands. It is experimental.
Known issues: filtering does not work completely.
Other commands
""""""""""""""
convert
'''''''
The convert command reads a CSV_ file you have downloaded from your bank,
and prints out the transactions in ledger format, suitable for adding to
your ledger. This can be a lot quicker than entering every transaction by
hand. (The downside is that you are less likely to notice if your bank makes an
error!)
Use it like this::
hledger convert FILE.csv >FILE.ledger
where FILE.csv is your downloaded csv file. This will convert the csv data
using conversion rules defined in FILE.rules (auto-creating this file if
needed), and save the output into a temporary ledger file. Then you
should review FILE.ledger for problems; update the rules and convert again
if needed; and finally copy/paste transactions which are new into your
main ledger.
Rules file
,,,,,,,,,,
A .rules file contains some data definitions and some rules for assigning
destination accounts to transactions. Typically you will have one csv file
and one rules file per bank account. Here's an example rules file for
converting csv data from a Wells Fargo checking account::
base-account assets:bank:checking
date-field 0
description-field 4
amount-field 1
currency $
# account-assigning rules
SPECTRUM
expenses:health:gym
ITUNES
BLKBSTR=BLOCKBUSTER
expenses:entertainment
(TO|FROM) SAVINGS
assets:bank:savings
This says:
- the ledger account corresponding to this csv file is assets:bank:checking
- the first csv field is the date, the second is the amount, the fifth is the description
- prepend a dollar sign to the amount field
- if description contains SPECTRUM (case-insensitive), the transaction is a gym expense
- if description contains ITUNES or BLKBSTR, the transaction is an entertainment expense; also rewrite BLKBSTR as BLOCKBUSTER
- if description contains TO SAVINGS or FROM SAVINGS, the transaction is a savings transfer
Notes:
- Lines beginning with # or ; are ignored (but avoid using inside an account rule)
- Definitions must come first, one per line, all in one paragraph. Each
is a name and a value separated by whitespace. Supported names are:
base-account, date-field, status-field, code-field, description-field,
amount-field, currency-field, currency. All are optional and will
use defaults if not specified.
- The remainder of the file is account-assigning rules. Each is a
paragraph consisting of one or more description-matching patterns
(case-insensitive regular expressions), one per line, followed by the
account name to use when the transaction's description matches any of
these patterns.
- A match pattern may optionally be followed by = and a replacement
pattern, which will become the ledger transaction's description.
Otherwise the matched part of the csv description is used. (To preserve
the full csv description, use .* before and after the match pattern.)
test
''''
This command runs hledger's internal self-tests and displays a quick report.
Smart dates
...........
hledger accepts "smart dates" in most places a date can be used, such as:
-b and -e options, and `period expressions <#period-expressions>`_
(but actually, not in the ledger file, which has more limited date parsing.)
Here are some examples:
- 2009/1/1, 2009/01/01, 2009-1-1, 2009.1.1, 2009/1, 2009 (january 1, 2009)
- 1/1, january, jan, this year (january 1, this year)
- next year (january 1, 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)
- today, yesterday, tomorrow
Period expressions
..................
hledger supports flexible "period expressions" with the ``-p/--period``
option to select transactions within a period of time (like 2009) and/or
with a reporting interval (like weekly). hledger period expressions are
similar but not identical to c++ ledger's.
Here is a basic period expression specifying the first quarter of 2009
(start date is always included, end date is always excluded)::
-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
Keywords like "from" and "to" are optional, and so are the spaces. Just
don't run two dates together::
-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1
-p"2009/1/1 2009/4/1"
Dates are `smart dates <#smart-dates>`_, so if the current year is 2009, the above can also
be written as::
-p "1/1 to 4/1"
-p "january to 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 ledger data::
-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; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2009/2/1")
-p "2009/1/1" (just that day; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2009/1/2")
Reporting interval
""""""""""""""""""
You can also specify a reporting interval, which causes the "register"
command to summarise the transactions in each interval. It goes before the
dates, and can be: "daily", "weekly", "monthly", "quarterly", or
"yearly". An "in" keyword is optional, and so are the dates::
-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
-p "monthly in 2008"
-p "monthly from 2008"
-p "quarterly"
A reporting interval may also be specified with the -W/--weekly,
-M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, and -Y/--yearly options. However..
-p overrides other flags
""""""""""""""""""""""""
A period option on the command line will override any -b/-e/-W/-Q/-Y flags.
Display expressions
...................
A display expression with the ``-d/--display`` option selects which
transactions will be displayed (unlike a `period expression
<#period-expressions>`_, which selects the transactions to be used for
calculation).
hledger currently supports a very small subset of c++ ledger's display
expressions, namely: transactions before or after a date. This is useful
for displaying your recent check register with an accurate running total.
Note the use of >= here to include the first of the month::
hledger register -d "d>=[this month]"
Prices
.............
As in c++ ledger, you can specify a per-unit price (or conversion rate) in
the following ways:
- **set the unit price for a single amount** by appending `` @ PRICE``, where
PRICE is another amount in a different commodity. Eg, here is one
hundred euros purchased at $1.35 per euro::
2009/1/2 x
expenses:foreign currency €100 @ $1.35
assets
- **set the unit price for a commodity as of a certain date** using "P"
historical price records. Eg, here we say the exchange rate for 1 euro
is $1.35 on 2009/1/1 (and thereafter, until a newer price record is
found)::
P 2009/1/1 € $1.35
2009/1/2 x
expenses:foreign currency €100
assets
The print command will show the unit prices in effect::
$ hledger print
2009/01/02 x
expenses:foreign currency €100 @ $1.35
assets €-100 @ $1.35
And to see amounts converted to their total cost, use the ``--cost/-B`` flag with any command::
$ hledger print --cost
2009/01/02 x
expenses:foreign currency $135.00
assets $-135.00
Notes:
- unlike c++ ledger we assume unit prices do not vary over time. This is
good for simple reporting of foreign currency transactions, but not for
tracking fluctuating-value investments or capital gains.
- a price is a simple amount with only one commodity. Ie you can't say an
orange is worth two grapes and an apple.
- ``--cost/-B`` does only one lookup step, ie it will not look up the
price of a price's commodity.
Timelog reporting
.................
hledger will also read timelog files in timeclock.el format. As a
convenience, if you invoke hledger via an "hours" symlink or copy, it uses
your timelog file (~/.timelog or $TIMELOG) by default, rather than your ledger.
Timelog entries look like this::
i 2009/03/31 22:21:45 some:project
o 2009/04/01 02:00:34
The clockin description is treated as an account name. Here are some
queries to try (after downloading sample.timelog_)::
ln -s `which hledger` ~/bin/hours # set up "hours" in your path
export TIMELOG=sample.timelog
hours # show all time balances
hours -p 'last week' # last week
hours -p thismonth # the space is optional
hours -p 'from 1/15' register project # project sessions since jan 15
hours -p 'weekly' reg --depth 1 -E # weekly time summary
This is a useful feature, if you can find a way to efficiently record
timelog entries. The "ti" and "to" scripts may be available from the c++
ledger 2.x repository. I use
`timeclock-x.el <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/timeclock-x.el>`_ and
`ledgerutils.el <http://joyful.com/repos/ledgertools/ledgerutils.el>`_
in emacs.
Differences from c++ ledger
...........................
hledger is written in the Haskell programming language. Haskell enables a
coding style known as pure lazy functional programming, which holds the
promise of more robust and maintainable software built with fewer lines of
code.
Features not supported
""""""""""""""""""""""
ledger features not currently supported include: modifier and periodic
entries, and the following options and commands::
Basic options:
-o, --output FILE write output to FILE
-i, --init-file FILE initialize ledger using FILE (default: ~/.ledgerrc)
-a, --account NAME use NAME for the default account (useful with QIF)
Report filtering:
-c, --current show only current and past entries (not future)
--period-sort EXPR sort each report period's entries by EXPR
-L, --actual consider only actual (non-automated) transactions
-r, --related calculate report using related transactions
--budget generate budget entries based on periodic entries
--add-budget show all transactions plus the budget
--unbudgeted show only unbudgeted transactions
--forecast EXPR generate forecast entries while EXPR is true
-l, --limit EXPR calculate only transactions matching EXPR
-t, --amount EXPR use EXPR to calculate the displayed amount
-T, --total EXPR use EXPR to calculate the displayed total
Output customization:
-n, --collapse Only show totals in the top-most accounts.
-s, --subtotal other: show subtotals
-P, --by-payee show summarized totals by payee
-x, --comm-as-payee set commodity name as the payee, for reporting
--dow show a days-of-the-week report
-S, --sort EXPR sort report according to the value expression EXPR
-w, --wide for the default register report, use 132 columns
--head COUNT show only the first COUNT entries (negative inverts)
--tail COUNT show only the last COUNT entries (negative inverts)
--pager PAGER send all output through the given PAGER program
-A, --average report average transaction amount
-D, --deviation report deviation from the average
-%, --percentage report balance totals as a percentile of the parent
--totals in the "xml" report, include running total
-j, --amount-data print only raw amount data (useful for scripting)
-J, --total-data print only raw total data
-y, --date-format STR use STR as the date format (default: %Y/%m/%d)
-F, --format STR use STR as the format; for each report type, use:
--balance-format --register-format --print-format
--plot-amount-format --plot-total-format --equity-format
--prices-format --wide-register-format
Commodity reporting:
--price-db FILE sets the price database to FILE (def: ~/.pricedb)
-L, --price-exp MINS download quotes only if newer than MINS (def: 1440)
-Q, --download download price information when needed
-O, --quantity report commodity totals (this is the default)
-V, --market report last known market value
-g, --performance report gain/loss for each displayed transaction
-G, --gain report net gain/loss
Commands:
xml [REGEXP]... print matching entries in XML format
equity [REGEXP]... output equity entries for matching accounts
prices [REGEXP]... display price history for matching commodities
entry DATE PAYEE AMT output a derived entry, based on the arguments
Other differences
"""""""""""""""""
* hledger recognises description and negative patterns by "desc:" and "not:" prefixes,
unlike ledger 3's free-form parser
* hledger doesn't require a space before command-line option values, you can write -f-
* hledger's weekly reporting intervals always start on mondays
* hledger shows start and end dates of the intervals requested, not just the span containing data
* hledger period expressions don't support "biweekly", "bimonthly", or "every N days/weeks/..."
* hledger always shows timelog balances in hours
* hledger splits multi-day timelog sessions at midnight
* hledger doesn't track the value of commodities with varying price;
prices are fixed as of the transaction date
* hledger print shows amounts for all postings, and shows unit prices for amounts which have them
Tips
....
- when writing a negative amount with a left-side currency symbol, the
minus goes after the symbol. Eg ``$-1`` not ``-$1``
- when combining desc: and not: in a filter pattern, not: goes last. Eg
``desc:not:...`` not ``not:desc:...``.
.. _hledger for techies: README2.html
.. _c++ ledger's manual: http://joyful.com/repos/ledger/doc/ledger.html
.. _John Wiegley's ledger: http://wiki.github.com/jwiegley/ledger
.. _sample.ledger: http://joyful.com/repos/hledger/sample.ledger
.. _sample.timelog: http://joyful.com/repos/hledger/sample.timelog
.. _binaries: http://hledger.org/binaries/
.. _Haskell Platform: http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/
.. _CSV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values
.. _gtk2hs: http://www.haskell.org/gtk2hs/download/
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