; A minimal "forecast budget", defined with a periodic transaction rule.

; We forecast/plan to spend $500 on food each month in 2020:
~ monthly in 2020
  (expenses:food)  $500

; Some transactions:

2020-01-15
  expenses:food    $400
  assets:checking

2020-03-15
  expenses:food    $600
  assets:checking

; Some examples of the balance --budget report,
; which compares the actual (so far) and forecasted amounts.
; There are still some UX issues.
comment

; Since 1.19.99, columns shrink to fit and can vary in width.
; Note Jan is showing no budget goal here (since 1.16), because "~ monthly"
; generates transactions on the first of each month, but the report's 
; start date here is 1/15 (the earliest transaction date) so the 
; january budget goal transaction is excluded. 
$ hledger -f forecast-budget-1.journal bal --budget -M
Budget performance in 2020Q1:

               ||   Jan             Feb                   Mar 
===============++=============================================
 <unbudgeted>  || $-400  0               $-600                
 expenses:food ||  $400  0 [0% of $500]   $600 [120% of $500] 
---------------++---------------------------------------------
               ||     0  0 [0% of $500]      0 [  0% of $500] 

; You have to specify explicit report dates to work around, eg:
$ hledger -f forecast-budget-1.journal bal --budget -M date:q1
Budget performance in 2020Q1:

               ||                 Jan             Feb                   Mar 
===============++===========================================================
 <unbudgeted>  || $-400                0               $-600                
 expenses:food ||  $400 [80% of $500]  0 [0% of $500]   $600 [120% of $500] 
---------------++-----------------------------------------------------------
               ||     0 [ 0% of $500]  0 [0% of $500]      0 [  0% of $500] 

; adding -E expands the <unbudgeted> account name for some reason
$ hledger -f forecast-budget-1.journal bal --budget -ME
Budget performance in 2020Q1:

                              ||   Jan             Feb                   Mar 
==============================++=============================================
 <unbudgeted>:assets:checking || $-400  0               $-600                
 expenses:food                ||  $400  0 [0% of $500]   $600 [120% of $500] 
------------------------------++---------------------------------------------
                              ||     0  0 [0% of $500]      0 [  0% of $500]