gmane.comp.finance.ledger.general

ANN: hledger 0.2 released

Simon Michael — 2008-11-23T22:46:22

hledger is a minimal haskell clone of John Wiegley's "ledger" text-based accounting tool (http://newartisans.com/software/ledger.html). hledger generates ledger-compatible register & balance reports from a plain text ledger file, and demonstrates a functional implementation of ledger. For more information, see the hledger home page: http://joyful.com/hledger INSTALLATION ------------ If you have cabal-install, do:: cabal install hledger otherwise, unpack http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/hledger/0.2/hledger-0.2.tar.gz and do:: runhaskell Setup.hs configure runhaskell Setup.hs build sudo runhaskell Setup.hs install (or for the latest code, darcs get http://joyful.com/repos/hledger) NEWS ---- * fixes * fix balance report totals when filtering by account * fix balance report selection of accounts when filtering by account * fix a bug with account name eliding in balance report * if we happen to be showing a not-yet-auto-balanced entry, hide the AUTO marker * fix print command filtering by account * omit transactions with zero amount from register report * Fix bug in parsing of timelogs * rename --showsubs to --subtotal, like ledger * drop --usage flag * don't require quickcheck * features * priced amounts (eg "10h < at > $50") and --basis/--cost/-B flag to show them with cost basis * easy --depth option, equivalent to c++ ledger's -d 'l<=N' * smarter y/m/d date parsing for -b and -e (any number of digits, month and day default to 1, separator can be / - or .) * -n flag for balance command * --empty/-E flag * build a library, as well as the exe * new home page url (http://joyful.com/hledger) * publish html and pdf versions of README * detect display preferences for each commodity like c++ ledger * support amounts with multiple currencies/commodities * support --real/-R flag * support -C/--cleared flag to filter by entry status (not transaction status) * support virtual and balanced virtual transactions * parse comment lines beginning with a space, as from M-; in emacs ledger-mode * allow any non-whitespace in account names, perhaps avoiding misleading missing amounts errors * clearer error message when we can't balance an entry * when we fail because of more than one missing amount in an entry, show the full entry * document the built-in test runner in --help * add a --verbose/-v flag, use it to show more test-running detail * includes 43 tests Contributors: * Simon Michael * Tim Docker

manual cleanup

Simon Michael — 2008-11-23T12:36:20

Hey John, all, I have a hard time finding my way around the ledger manual, except by searching the one-page html version. I had some energy tonight and ended up learning enough git and Texinfo to be dangerous, and reorganised the manual a bit. I think it's more linear now. It starts with the Introduction. (An action-packed Getting Started might be better, but the current content is more Introduction.) It then gives the overview and reference for all the commands and options (Using Ledger). It might seem odd to put this here but I feel the rest is so involved that it's better to learn early on what exactly the tool does and then get into the details of using it. Next there's the Ledger Tutorial (the old Usage Overview). And finally, all the other topics form an ever-growing "Ledger in Practice" chapter. current version: http://joyful.com/repos/ledger/doc/ledger/ new version: http://joyful.com/repos/ledger/doc/ledger-sm/ git repo (I think this works ?): http://joyful.com/repos/ledger Feedback welcome!

example balance sheet report

Simon Michael — 2008-11-20T22:07:56

I'm working on reports which my accountant can recognise. Here's my latest balance sheet script, for anyone interested. I'd like to see what other folk are using. #!/bin/sh # balancesheet [extraoptions] echo "Balance sheet as of `date`" echo "totals include sub-accounts" echo ledger -nE --balance-format '%10T %2_%-a\n' --display "l<=2" --basis --subtotal $* balance assets echo ledger -nE --balance-format '%10T %2_%-a\n' --display "l<=2" --basis --subtotal $* balance liabilities echo ledger -nE --balance-format '%10T %2_%-a\n' --display "l<=4" --basis --subtotal $* balance equity echo echo "`ledger --balance-format '%10T %2_%-a\n' --basis $* balance liabilities equity | tail -1`liabilities + equity" echo ledger --balance-format '%10T %2_%-a\n' --basis $* balance assets liabilities equity | tail -2

BUG? --prices-db not performing tilde expansion in .ledgerrc

2008-11-10T10:38:14

It seems that the --priced-db option in .ledgerrc does not perform tilde expansion on the filename specified, and so does not update the prices database file. For example, if my .ledgerrc file reads --file ~/docs/ledger/ledger.dat --price-db ~/docs/ledger/prices.dat and I issue the command ledger -QV bal . then I notice that my prices.dat file is not updated. However, if I specify an absolute path in .ledgerrc: --file ~/docs/ledger/ledger.dat --price-db /Users/mcarter/docs/ledger/prices.dat and issue the command, then prices.dat is properly updated.

getquote-uk.py

Mark Carter — 2008-11-06T23:41:35

Emacs mode bug: sort moves the ledger-mode header

Steve Hicks — 2008-11-04T01:20:37

Hi, I put "; -*-ledger-*-" at the top of my ledger file, as suggested in the manual, but then using C-c C-s to sort the entries I find that this gets sorted along with them, and ends up at the bottom of the file. The sorting behaves better if I prepend a space, but then ledger itself doesn't like it. Cheers, steve

Illegal option -Q

2008-11-02T15:30:38

I recently compiled the git version of ledger. Am I right in thinking that the option to download equity quotes has been removed?

formulas for mortgage interest etc?

David Roundy — 2008-11-01T15:43:33

Hello, I've just started experimenting with ledger, and it looks very nice, but I've run into a problem that must be pretty common, but which I can't find an example for in the manual. I'd like to create entries that use a formula to compute the values, which doesn't seem to be supported (but I hope I'm wrong). I imagine something like 11/5 mortgage payment Assets:Checking $-2000 Expenses:Mortgage Interest 0.05*(Liabilities:Mortgage) Expenses:Tax $500 Liabilities:Mortgage So that I could automatically keep track of how much the principle still is on my mortgage. Of course, I could write a script to generate this payment, but I'd rather not bother. Is there a syntax for formulas like this? The closest I could see was the tithing example, but I'd like this to be a real account and a real (non- virtual) transaction. On the other hand, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to allow the Liabilities:Mortgage account to be virtual, since I never directly access it... Is this something others have dealt with, and if so, what do you do? David

how to show credit card liability when initializing ledger

lunatech — 2008-10-26T20:03:51

Hi, I am trying to create an initial ledger file for managing my account. The manual says that I can show my opening balance for bank account being credited from Equity, i.e. ' 2008/10/25 * Checking balance Assets:HSBC:Checking Rs 1000 Equity:Opening Balances ' My question though is about my credit card's opening balance. I have recorded that too as being credited from the Equity. i.e., I have something like this ' 2008/10/25 ! Hsbc Credit Card Liabilities:HSBC:MasterCard Rs 200 Equity:Opening Balances ' I wanted to know if this is the right way to do this? Thanks for your help!

Forecasting?

Bill Harris — 2008-10-26T17:06:22

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I'm now on 2.6.1, and it dawned on me I can finally use forecasting by dates. But it didn't work. So I started simple. John sent out an email about forecasting 2006/04/06, and I created a simple ledger with this content snipped from his email: ,---- | ~ Monthly from 2005/10/20 until 2007/01/01 | Expenses:Rent $550 | Assets:Checking `---- Now I'm not sure what to do. ,----[ Simple test ] | $ ledger --budget -M -f forecasttest.dat reg Expenses | Error: Please specify ledger file using -f or LEDGER_FILE environment variable. `---- and more of the same. If I switch to a live file that has an analogous entry at the top and an otherwise working ledger, I get ,---- | $ ledger -s --forecast bal Expenses | Error: Unrecognized command 'Expenses' `---- If I enter the exact same command but without the "--forecast", I get a listing of current balances, as expected (a bit meaningless, of course, since it sums everything since I started this ledger). If I enter the same command but with forecast replaced by budget, I get the sum for health insurance to date that's one payment less than what I get if I drop the --budget. FWIW, the date specifier in the budget / forecast entry is ,---- | ~ monthly from 2008/11/01 until 2009/06/01 `---- I'm confused. What I /want/ to do is to enter, for example, forecasts of repeating expenses (e.g., phone bills) out into the future plus forecasts of isolated events (e.g., a tax payment or a projected bit of income) and have it show me my cash flows by month over time to some specified date in the future. (It'd be nice if I did it by day to see if I had a problem in some account.) Then, when that phone or tax bill becomes reality, I want it to start using the actuals, instead. It'd be nice if it were smart enough to do it automatically, but I rather suspect I'll need to prompt it. Suggestions on how I should be using forecasting? Thanks, Bill -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: http://getfiregpg.org iD8DBQFJBKN/3J3HaQTDvd8RAvv4AJ43J6tXjqxNXr4yDI4PUzVXjDLGZQCdFKBg iUQrAFnkzms6x17LdwR6Wh8= =Lm6L -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

sort by account name in balance report ?

Simon Michael — 2008-10-24T07:26:29

Here is my income statement script: #!/bin/sh # incomestatement echo "Income statement" echo "----------------" ledger --balance-format '%10T %2_%-a\n' --basis --subtotal balance income expenses ledger shows expenses before income. Is it possible to show income first, using a single ledger command ?

actual date, effective date

Simon Michael — 2008-10-24T07:37:40

All ledger entries have a date, the actual date. An effective date may be specified by adding =theeffectivedate. Also, individual transactions may have their actual and/or effective date specified in brackets in a comment: ; [actualdate] or [=effectivedate] or [actualdate=effectivedate]. Like other ledger file features which aren't obvious at first, I believe the goal is to allow you to model the real world more closely, as eg when your bank takes a few days to process a transaction. I don't yet have a good idea of why an individual transaction could need to specify its own actual *and* effective date. Does anyone have a good example ?

cashflow statement ?

Simon Michael — 2008-10-24T07:30:01

I believe a cashflow statement shows the difference between two balance sheets at different points in time. Has anyone figured out how to make one of these with ledger ?

Business Logic

Russell Adams — 2008-10-24T04:49:18

I've been working off and on to integrate basic business logic with Ledger. So far my main two items have been: - Expense Reporting - For reimbursement - PDF Report via Latex w/ Scanned images - Invoicing - # Hours by project & period - PDF Invoice I have a functional expense reporting system I'll share if anyone is interested. I'd like to solicit some help regarding the invoicing. I'd like to use accounts in Ledger to track the status of the hours, tie in the invoice # for reporting, and more. Would anyone else be interested in these items? Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Russell Adams RLAdams-oD4XmFtju8sd7qmyaarJZgC/G2K4zDHf< at >public.gmane.org PGP Key ID: 0x1160DCB3 http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/ Fingerprint: 1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F 66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3

Rounding problem

Tony Edgecombe — 2008-10-21T09:56:10

I seem to have a rounding problem when I use the -B option, if I have a ledger that looks like this: 2008/01/01* Checking balance Assets:Bank:Checking £0.00 Equity:Opening Balances 2008/02/02Salary Income:Employer$-512.85 Assets:Bank:Checking $512.85 < at >< at > £334.00 2008/03/02Salary Income:Employer$-404.82 Assets:Bank:Checking $404.82 < at >< at > £248.07 Then issue the command "ledger -Bf test.ledger bal" I get this out: £582.07 Assets £-582.06999876 Income -------------------- £0.00000124

hledger mail list

Simon Michael — 2008-10-17T18:31:45

hledger needs a mail list. In a way, it would be nice to share this one; there will probably be quite an overlap between these two interest groups. I think sorting out the overlapping development and bug discussions would be too hard though, so I should make a new list. It will be another google group. Any thoughts welcome.

Specifying year. Bug?

Christopher — 2008-10-15T12:39:56

When I use this file: Y2008 01/30 A Bank130 Income 02/01 B Bank140 Income 02/20 C Bank150 Income 03/01 D Bank160 Income And I run ledger on it, the following output is produced: 2008/01/30 A Bank 130 130 Income -130 0 2002/01/01 B Bank 140 140 Income -140 0 2008/02/20 C Bank 150 150 Income -150 0 2003/01/01 D Bank 160 160 Income -160 0 The years are not at all what I expected. Is this a bug or am I using a wrong file format? Christopher

bugs or features ?

Simon Michael — 2008-10-15T09:06:25

While working on hledger, I found a few more ledger 2.6 quirks. I wonder if these are accurate/intended ? - in register report, account patterns always match against the full account name - but in balance report, account patterns match only the account's leaf name, except when they contain : or are negative patterns - if an entry contains different commodities, ledger doesn't require it to balance

Textmate bundle?

bongoman — 2008-10-15T02:05:16

Hi there Anyone using Ledger with Textmate on Mac OS X? Am curious if there is a Ledger bundle out there.... -- bongoman

Sorting output by entry code

Christopher — 2008-10-13T16:28:39

I use numbers as entry codes to uniquely identify each transaction. Is there a way to sort the output by the entry code in numerical order or even select ranges? I could only find filtering the entry code by regular expressions, which is appropriate for text, but not for numbers. Christopher

ledger cache needs to be deleted often?

Bill — 2008-10-11T19:34:39

I've just moved to ledger 2.6.1 on Linux (Ubuntu Hardy, FWIW) after having used an earlier version for years on Windows / cygwin. I like it so far, but I notice that I have to delete ~/ .ledger-cache often after I switch LEDGER_FILE to a new value. Does anyone have an idea why that might be and what I might do to fix it? Thanks, Bill