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hledger/hledger-lib/hledger_journal.txt
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hledger_journal(5) hledger User Manuals hledger_journal(5)
NAME
Journal - hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal
DESCRIPTION
hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal en-
tries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard ac-
counting general journal. I use file names ending in .journal, but
that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction
entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between
two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger
and humans.
hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's
journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal
files as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and
ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get-
ting.
You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use
the add or web commands to create and update it. Many users, though,
also edit the journal file directly with a text editor, perhaps as-
sisted by the helper modes for emacs or vim.
Here's an example:
; A sample journal file. This is a comment.
2008/01/01 income ; <- transaction's first line starts in column 0, contains date and description
assets:bank:checking $1 ; <- posting lines start with whitespace, each contains an account name
income:salary $-1 ; followed by at least two spaces and an amount
2008/06/01 gift
assets:bank:checking $1 ; <- at least two postings in a transaction
income:gifts $-1 ; <- their amounts must balance to 0
2008/06/02 save
assets:bank:saving $1
assets:bank:checking ; <- one amount may be omitted; here $-1 is inferred
2008/06/03 eat & shop ; <- description can be anything
expenses:food $1
expenses:supplies $1 ; <- this transaction debits two expense accounts
assets:cash ; <- $-2 inferred
2008/10/01 take a loan
assets:bank:checking $1
liabilities:debts $-1
2008/12/31 * pay off ; <- an optional * or ! after the date means "cleared" (or anything you want)
liabilities:debts $1
assets:bank:checking
FILE FORMAT
Transactions
Transactions are movements of some quantity of commodities between
named accounts. Each transaction is represented by a journal entry be-
ginning with a simple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of
the following, separated by spaces:
o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *)
o (optional) a transaction code (any short number or text, enclosed in
parentheses)
o (optional) a transaction description (any remaining text until end of
line or a semicolon)
o (optional) a transaction comment (any remaining text following a
semicolon until end of line)
Then comes zero or more (but usually at least 2) indented lines repre-
senting...
Postings
A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount
from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or
tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by:
o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space
o (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single
spaces, until end of line or a double space)
o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount.
Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are
being removed.
The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a con-
venience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to
balance the transaction.
Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name
and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing spa-
ces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before the
amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name.
Dates
Simple dates
Within a journal file, transaction dates use Y/M/D (or Y-M-D or Y.M.D)
Leading zeros are optional. The year may be omitted, in which case it
will be inferred from the context - the current transaction, the de-
fault year set with a default year directive, or the current date when
the command is run. Some examples: 2010/01/31, 1/31, 2010-01-31,
2010.1.31.
Secondary dates
Real-life transactions sometimes involve more than one date - eg the
date you write a cheque, and the date it clears in your bank. When you
want to model this, eg for more accurate balances, you can specify in-
dividual posting dates, which I recommend. Or, you can use the sec-
ondary dates (aka auxiliary/effective dates) feature, supported for
compatibility with Ledger.
A secondary date can be written after the primary date, separated by an
equals sign. The primary date, on the left, is used by default; the
secondary date, on the right, is used when the --date2 flag is speci-
fied (--aux-date or --effective also work).
The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow a
consistent rule. Eg write the bank's clearing date as primary, and
when needed, the date the transaction was initiated as secondary.
Here's an example. Note that a secondary date will use the year of the
primary date if unspecified.
2010/2/23=2/19 movie ticket
expenses:cinema $10
assets:checking
$ hledger register checking
2010/02/23 movie ticket assets:checking $-10 $-10
$ hledger register checking --date2
2010/02/19 movie ticket assets:checking $-10 $-10
Secondary dates require some effort; you must use them consistently in
your journal entries and remember whether to use or not use the --date2
flag for your reports. They are included in hledger for Ledger compat-
ibility, but posting dates are a more powerful and less confusing al-
ternative.
Posting dates
You can give individual postings a different date from their parent
transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below)
like date:DATE. This is probably the best way to control posting dates
precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May re-
ports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for
easy bank reconciliation:
2015/5/30
expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30
assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1
$ hledger -f t.j register food
2015/05/30 expenses:food $10 $10
$ hledger -f t.j register checking
2015/06/01 assets:checking $-10 $-10
DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use
the year of the transaction's date. You can set the secondary date
similarly, with date2:DATE2. The date: or date2: tags must have a
valid simple date value if they are present, eg a date: tag with no
value is not allowed.
Ledger's earlier, more compact bracketed date syntax is also supported:
[DATE], [DATE=DATE2] or [=DATE2]. hledger will attempt to parse any
square-bracketed sequence of the 0123456789/-.= characters in this way.
With this syntax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and DATE2
infers its year from DATE.
Status
Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a
status mark, which is a single character before the transaction de-
scription or posting account name, separated from it by a space, indi-
cating one of three statuses:
mark status
------------------
unmarked
! pending
* cleared
When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked,
-P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and
status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui.
Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state
is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to un-
marked for clarity.
To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend-
ing, combine -U and -P.
Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with
real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and short-
cuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can toggle
transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c.
What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you.
Here's one suggestion:
status meaning
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review
pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big reconcil-
iation)
cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered cor-
rect
With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your
bank, -U to see things which will probably hit your bank soon (like un-
cashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your
finances.
Description
A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date
and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the
"narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you
wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike
comments.
Payee and note
You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to sub-
divide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the
left (up to the first |) and an additional note field on the right (af-
ter the first |). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more pre-
cise querying and pivoting by payee or by note.
Account names
Account names typically have several parts separated by a full colon,
from which hledger derives a hierarchical chart of accounts. They can
be anything you like, but in finance there are traditionally five top-
level accounts: assets, liabilities, income, expenses, and equity.
Account names may contain single spaces, eg: assets:accounts receiv-
able. Because of this, they must always be followed by two or more
spaces (or newline).
Account names can be aliased.
Amounts
After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: be-
tween account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.)
hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international
formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the "quan-
tity"):
1
..and usually a currency or commodity name (the "commodity"). This is
a symbol, word, or phrase, to the left or right of the quantity, with
or without a separating space:
$1
4000 AAPL
If the commodity name contains spaces, numbers, or punctuation, it must
be enclosed in double quotes:
3 "no. 42 green apples"
Amounts can be negative. The minus sign can be written before or after
a left-side commodity symbol:
-$1
$-1
Scientific E notation is allowed:
1E-6
EUR 1E3
A decimal mark (decimal point) can be written with a period or a comma:
1.23
1,23456780000009
Digit group marks
In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups
of digits can optionally be separated by a "digit group mark" - a
space, comma, or period (different from the decimal mark):
$1,000,000.00
EUR 2.000.000,00
INR 9,99,99,999.00
1 000 000.9455
Note, a number containing a single group mark and no decimal mark is
ambiguous. Are these group marks or decimal marks ?
1,000
1.000
hledger will treat them both as decimal marks by default (cf #793). If
you use digit group marks, to prevent confusion and undetected typos we
recommend you write commodity directives at the top of the file to ex-
plicitly declare the decimal mark (and optionally a digit group mark).
Note, these formats ("amount styles") are specific to each commodity,
so if your data uses multiple formats, hledger can handle it:
commodity $1,000.00
commodity EUR 1.000,00
commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00
commodity 1 000 000.9455
Amount display format
For each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent format to use when
displaying amounts. (Except price amounts, which are always displayed
as written). The display format is chosen as follows:
o If there is a commodity directive for the commodity, that format is
used (see examples above).
o Otherwise the format of the first posting amount in that commodity
seen in the journal is used. But the number of decimal places ("pre-
cision") will be the maximum from all posting amounts in that comm-
modity.
o Or if there are no such amounts in the journal, a default format is
used (like $1000.00).
Price amounts, and amounts in D directives don't affect the amount dis-
play format directly, but occasionally they can do so indirectly. (Eg
when D's default commodity is applied to a commodity-less amount, or
when an amountless posting is balanced using a price's commodity, or
when -V is used.) If you find this causing problems, use a commodity
directive to set the display format.
Virtual Postings
When you parenthesise the account name in a posting, we call that a
virtual posting, which means:
o it is ignored when checking that the transaction is balanced
o it is excluded from reports when the --real/-R flag is used, or the
real:1 query.
You could use this, eg, to set an account's opening balance without
needing to use the equity:opening balances account:
1/1 special unbalanced posting to set initial balance
(assets:checking) $1000
When the account name is bracketed, we call it a balanced virtual post-
ing. This is like an ordinary virtual posting except the balanced vir-
tual postings in a transaction must balance to 0, like the real post-
ings (but separately from them). Balanced virtual postings are also
excluded by --real/-R or real:1.
1/1 buy food with cash, and update some budget-tracking subaccounts elsewhere
expenses:food $10
assets:cash $-10
[assets:checking:available] $10
[assets:checking:budget:food] $-10
Virtual postings have some legitimate uses, but those are few. You can
usually find an equivalent journal entry using real postings, which is
more correct and provides better error checking.
Balance Assertions
hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files.
These look like, for example, = EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's
amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a
and b after each posting:
2013/1/1
a $1 =$1
b =$-1
2013/1/2
a $1 =$2
b $-1 =$-2
After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions
and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can pro-
tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while
cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with the
-I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or
for reading Ledger files.
Assertions and ordering
hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and
then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is dif-
ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. (Also,
Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated post-
ings to the same account within a transaction.)
So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently-
dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder same-dated
transactions or postings, assertions might break and require updating.
This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise control over the
order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra-
day balances.
Assertions and included files
With included files, things are a little more complicated. Including
preserves the ordering of postings and assertions. If you have multi-
ple postings to an account on the same day, split across different
files, and you also want to assert the account's balance on the same
day, you'll have to put the assertion in the right file.
Assertions and multiple -f options
Balance assertions don't work well across files specified with multiple
-f options. Use include or concatenate the files instead.
Assertions and commodities
The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in
fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the
(possibly multi-commodity) account balance.
This is how assertions work in Ledger also. We could call this a "par-
tial" balance assertion.
To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can
write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance.
You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double
equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other
unasserted commodities in the account (or, that their balance is 0).
2013/1/1
a $1
a 1EUR
b $-1
c -1EUR
2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed
a 0 = $1
a 0 = 1EUR
b 0 == $-1
c 0 == -1EUR
2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1EUR
a 0 == $1
It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that
has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each commodity
into its own subaccount:
2013/1/1
a:usd $1
a:euro 1EUR
b
2013/1/2
a 0 == 0
a:usd 0 == $1
a:euro 0 == 1EUR
Assertions and prices
Balance assertions ignore transaction prices, and should normally be
written without one:
2019/1/1
(a) $1 @ EUR1 = $1
We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them,
even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or fails.
This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used to
generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance assign-
ments do use them (see below).
Assertions and subaccounts
The balance assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from
subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You can
assert the balance including subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg:
2019/1/1
equity:opening balances
checking:a 5
checking:b 5
checking 1 ==* 11
Assertions and virtual postings
Balance assertions are checked against all postings, both real and vir-
tual. They are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query.
Assertions and precision
Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are
not always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may
limit the display precision, but this will not affect balance asser-
tions. Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts.
Balance Assignments
Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like
balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the
equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy
the assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when
setting opening balances:
; starting a new journal, set asset account balances
2016/1/1 opening balances
assets:checking = $409.32
assets:savings = $735.24
assets:cash = $42
equity:opening balances
or when adjusting a balance to reality:
; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense
2016/1/15
assets:cash = $0
expenses:misc
The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity
at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings of the
commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or assign-
ment). Note that using balance assignments makes your journal a little
less explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger
or do the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it.
Balance assignments and prices
A transaction price in a balance assignment will cause the calculated
amount to have that price attached:
2019/1/1
(a) = $1 @ EUR2
$ hledger print --explicit
2019/01/01
(a) $1 @ EUR2 = $1 @ EUR2
Transaction prices
Within a transaction, you can note an amount's price in another commod-
ity. This can be used to document the cost (in a purchase) or selling
price (in a sale). For example, transaction prices are useful to
record purchases of a foreign currency. Note transaction prices are
fixed at the time of the transaction, and do not change over time. See
also market prices, which represent prevailing exchange rates on a cer-
tain date.
There are several ways to record a transaction price:
1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount:
2009/1/1
assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each
assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00
2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount:
2009/1/1
assets:euros EUR100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot
assets:dollars
3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and
let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction:
2009/1/1
assets:euros EUR100 ; one hundred euros purchased
assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135
(Ledger users: Ledger uses a different syntax for fixed prices, {=UNIT-
PRICE}, which hledger currently ignores).
Use the -B/--cost flag to convert amounts to their transaction price's
commodity, if any. (mnemonic: "B" is from "cost Basis", as in Ledger).
Eg here is how -B affects the balance report for the example above:
$ hledger bal -N --flat
$-135 assets:dollars
EUR100 assets:euros
$ hledger bal -N --flat -B
$-135 assets:dollars
$135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost
Note -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a transaction price
is inferred: the inferred price will be in the commodity of the last
amount. So if example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction
is equivalent, -B shows something different:
2009/1/1
assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold
assets:euros EUR100 ; for 100 euros
$ hledger bal -N --flat -B
EUR-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price
EUR100 assets:euros
Comments
Lines in the journal beginning with a semicolon (;) or hash (#) or star
(*) are comments, and will be ignored. (Star comments cause org-mode
nodes to be ignored, allowing emacs users to fold and navigate their
journals with org-mode or orgstruct-mode.)
You can attach comments to a transaction by writing them after the de-
scription and/or indented on the following lines (before the postings).
Similarly, you can attach comments to an individual posting by writing
them after the amount and/or indented on the following lines. Transac-
tion and posting comments must begin with a semicolon (;).
Some examples:
# a file comment
; also a file comment
comment
This is a multiline file comment,
which continues until a line
where the "end comment" string
appears on its own (or end of file).
end comment
2012/5/14 something ; a transaction comment
; the transaction comment, continued
posting1 1 ; a comment for posting 1
posting2
; a comment for posting 2
; another comment line for posting 2
; a file comment (because not indented)
You can also comment larger regions of a file using comment and end
comment directives.
Tags
Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to postings and
transactions, which you can then search or pivot on.
A simple tag is a word (which may contain hyphens) followed by a full
colon, written inside a transaction or posting comment line:
2017/1/16 bought groceries ; sometag:
Tags can have a value, which is the text after the colon, up to the
next comma or end of line, with leading/trailing whitespace removed:
expenses:food $10 ; a-posting-tag: the tag value
Note this means hledger's tag values can not contain commas or new-
lines. Ending at commas means you can write multiple short tags on one
line, comma separated:
assets:checking ; a comment containing tag1:, tag2: some value ...
Here,
o "a comment containing" is just comment text, not a tag
o "tag1" is a tag with no value
o "tag2" is another tag, whose value is "some value ..."
Tags in a transaction comment affect the transaction and all of its
postings, while tags in a posting comment affect only that posting.
For example, the following transaction has three tags (A, TAG2, third-
tag) and the posting has four (those plus posting-tag):
1/1 a transaction ; A:, TAG2:
; third-tag: a third transaction tag, <- with a value
(a) $1 ; posting-tag:
Tags are like Ledger's metadata feature, except hledger's tag values
are simple strings.
Directives
A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword,
that influences how the journal is processed. hledger's directives are
based on a subset of Ledger's, but there are many differences (and also
some differences between hledger versions).
Directives' behaviour and interactions can get a little bit complex, so
here is a table summarising the directives and their effects, with
links to more detailed docs.
direc- end di- subdi- purpose can affect (as of
tive rective rec- 2018/06)
tives
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
account any document account names, de- all entries in all
text clare account types & dis- files, before or
play order after
alias end rewrite account names following in-
aliases line/included en-
tries until end of
current file or end
directive
apply end apply prepend a common parent to following in-
account account account names line/included en-
tries until end of
current file or end
directive
comment end com- ignore part of journal following in-
ment line/included en-
tries until end of
current file or end
directive
commod- format declare a commodity and its number notation:
ity number notation & display following entries
style in that commodity
in all files; dis-
play style: amounts
of that commodity
in reports
D declare a commodity, number commodity: all com-
notation & display style for modityless entries
commodityless amounts in all files; num-
ber notation: fol-
lowing commodity-
less entries and
entries in that
commodity in all
files; display
style: amounts of
that commodity in
reports
include include entries/directives what the included
from another file directives affect
P declare a market price for a amounts of that
commodity commodity in re-
ports, when -V is
used
Y declare a year for yearless following in-
dates line/included en-
tries until end of
current file
And some definitions:
subdirec- optional indented directive line immediately following a par-
tive ent directive
number how to interpret numbers when parsing journal entries (the
notation identity of the decimal separator character). (Currently
each commodity can have its own notation, even in the same
file.)
display how to display amounts of a commodity in reports (symbol side
style and spacing, digit groups, decimal separator, decimal places)
directive which entries and (when there are multiple files) which files
scope are affected by a directive
As you can see, directives vary in which journal entries and files they
affect, and whether they are focussed on input (parsing) or output (re-
ports). Some directives have multiple effects.
If you have a journal made up of multiple files, or pass multiple -f
options on the command line, note that directives which affect input
typically last only until the end of their defining file. This pro-
vides more simplicity and predictability, eg reports are not changed by
writing file options in a different order. It can be surprising at
times though.
Comment blocks
A line containing just comment starts a commented region of the file,
and a line containing just end comment (or the end of the current file)
ends it. See also comments.
Including other files
You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include
directive, like this:
include path/to/file.journal
If the path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the current
file. The include file path may contain common glob patterns (e.g.
*).
The include directive can only be used in journal files. It can in-
clude journal, timeclock or timedot files, but not CSV files.
Default year
You can set a default year to be used for subsequent dates which don't
specify a year. This is a line beginning with Y followed by the year.
Eg:
Y2009 ; set default year to 2009
12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15
expenses 1
assets
Y2010 ; change default year to 2010
2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected
expenses 1
assets
1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31
expenses 1
assets
Declaring commodities
The commodity directive declares commodities which may be used in the
journal, and their display format.
It may be written on a single line, like this:
; commodity EXAMPLEAMOUNT
; display AAAA amounts with the symbol on the right, space-separated,
; using period as decimal point, with four decimal places, and
; separating thousands with comma.
commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA
or on multiple lines, using the "format" subdirective. In this case
the commodity symbol appears twice and should be the same in both
places:
; commodity SYMBOL
; format EXAMPLEAMOUNT
; display indian rupees with currency name on the left,
; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated,
; period as decimal point, and two decimal places.
commodity INR
format INR 9,99,99,999.00
Declaring commodites may be useful as documentation, but currently we
do not enforce that only declared commodities may be used. This direc-
tive is mainly useful for customising the preferred display format for
a commodity.
Normally the display format is inferred from journal entries, but this
can be unpredictable; declaring it with a commodity directive overrides
this and removes ambiguity. Towards this end, amounts in commodity di-
rectives must always be written with a decimal point (a period or
comma, followed by 0 or more decimal digits).
Commodity directives do not affect how amounts are parsed; the parser
will read multiple formats.
Default commodity
The D directive sets a default commodity (and display format), to be
used for amounts without a commodity symbol (ie, plain numbers). (Note
this differs from Ledger's default commodity directive.) The commodity
and display format will be applied to all subsequent commodity-less
amounts, or until the next D directive.
; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars
; (and displayed with symbol on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places)
D $1,000.00
1/1
a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, becomes $1
b
As with the commodity directive, the amount must always be written with
a decimal point.
Market prices
The P directive declares a market price, which is an exchange rate be-
tween two commodities on a certain date. (In Ledger, they are called
"historical prices".) These are often obtained from a stock exchange,
cryptocurrency exchange, or the foreign exchange market.
Here is the format:
P DATE COMMODITYA COMMODITYBAMOUNT
o DATE is a simple date
o COMMODITYA is the symbol of the commodity being priced
o COMMODITYBAMOUNT is an amount (symbol and quantity) in a second com-
modity, giving the price in commodity B of one unit of commodity A.
These two market price directives say that one euro was worth 1.35 US
dollars during 2009, and $1.40 from 2010 onward:
P 2009/1/1 EUR $1.35
P 2010/1/1 EUR $1.40
The -V/--value flag can be used to convert reported amounts to another
commodity using these prices.
Declaring accounts
account directives can be used to pre-declare accounts. Though not re-
quired, they can provide several benefits:
o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer-
ence.
o They can store extra information about accounts (account numbers,
notes, etc.)
o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability,
equity, revenue, expense), useful for reports like balancesheet and
incomestatement.
o They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alpha-
betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses).
o They help with account name completion in the add command, hledger-
iadd, hledger-web, ledger-mode etc.
The simplest form is just the word account followed by a hledger-style
account name, eg:
account assets:bank:checking
Account comments
Comments, beginning with a semicolon, optionally including tags, can be
written after the account name, and/or on following lines. Eg:
account assets:bank:checking ; a comment
; another comment
; acctno:12345, a tag
Tip: comments on the same line require hledger 1.12+. If you need your
journal to be compatible with older hledger versions, write comments on
the next line instead.
Account subdirectives
We also allow (and ignore) Ledger-style indented subdirectives, just
for compatibility.:
account assets:bank:checking
format blah blah ; <- subdirective, ignored
Here is the full syntax of account directives:
account ACCTNAME [ACCTTYPE] [;COMMENT]
[;COMMENTS]
[LEDGER-STYLE SUBDIRECTIVES, IGNORED]
Account types
hledger recognises five types (or classes) of account: Asset, Liabil-
ity, Equity, Revenue, Expense. This is used by a few accounting-aware
reports such as balancesheet, incomestatement and cashflow.
Auto-detected account types
If you name your top-level accounts with some variation of assets, lia-
bilities/debts, equity, revenues/income, or expenses, their types are
detected automatically.
Account types declared with tags
More generally, you can declare an account's type with an account di-
rective, by writing a type: tag in a comment, followed by one of the
words Asset, Liability, Equity, Revenue, Expense, or one of the letters
ALERX (case insensitive):
account assets ; type:Asset
account liabilities ; type:Liability
account equity ; type:Equity
account revenues ; type:Revenue
account expenses ; type:Expenses
Account types declared with account type codes
Or, you can write one of those letters separated from the account name
by two or more spaces, but this should probably be considered depre-
cated as of hledger 1.13:
account assets A
account liabilities L
account equity E
account revenues R
account expenses X
Overriding auto-detected types
If you ever override the types of those auto-detected english account
names mentioned above, you might need to help the reports a bit. Eg:
; make "liabilities" not have the liability type - who knows why
account liabilities ; type:E
; we need to ensure some other account has the liability type,
; otherwise balancesheet would still show "liabilities" under Liabilities
account - ; type:L
Account display order
Account directives also set the order in which accounts are displayed,
eg in reports, the hledger-ui accounts screen, and the hledger-web
sidebar. By default accounts are listed in alphabetical order. But if
you have these account directives in the journal:
account assets
account liabilities
account equity
account revenues
account expenses
you'll see those accounts displayed in declaration order, not alphabet-
ically:
$ hledger accounts -1
assets
liabilities
equity
revenues
expenses
Undeclared accounts, if any, are displayed last, in alphabetical order.
Note that sorting is done at each level of the account tree (within
each group of sibling accounts under the same parent). And currently,
this directive:
account other:zoo
would influence the position of zoo among other's subaccounts, but not
the position of other among the top-level accounts. This means: - you
will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account other above) that
you don't intend to post to, just to customize their display order -
sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between a:b
and a:c).
Rewriting accounts
You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or
parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for:
o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier
data entry and a less verbose journal
o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts
o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy or
combining two accounts into one
o customising reports
Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. They
do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger-
web.
See also Cookbook: Rewrite account names.
Basic aliases
To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file.
This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its
included files. The spaces around the = are optional:
alias OLD = NEW
Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line. This
affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases interactively.
OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will re-
place any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. Subac-
counts are also affected. Eg:
alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking
; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a"
Regex aliases
There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression,
indicated by the forward slashes:
alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT
or --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT'.
REGEX is a case-insensitive regular expression. Anywhere it matches
inside an account name, the matched part will be replaced by REPLACE-
MENT. If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be ref-
erenced by the usual numeric backreferences in REPLACEMENT. Eg:
alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+)(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3
; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking"
Also note that REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command
line, to end of option argument), so it can contain trailing white-
space.
Combining aliases
You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives
and/or command line options.
Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias,
then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the
effect of previously applied aliases.
In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be
applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal
entry, we apply:
1. alias directives preceding the journal entry, most recently parsed
first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to top)
2. --alias options, in the order they appeared on the command line
(left to right).
In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry:
o the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied first
o the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on
o aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it.
This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps pro-
vide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way inde-
pendent of which files are being read and in which order.
In case of trouble, adding --debug=6 to the command line will show
which aliases are being applied when.
end aliases
You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases with the end
aliases directive:
end aliases
Default parent account
You can specify a parent account which will be prepended to all ac-
counts within a section of the journal. Use the apply account and end
apply account directives like so:
apply account home
2010/1/1
food $10
cash
end apply account
which is equivalent to:
2010/01/01
home:food $10
home:cash $-10
If end apply account is omitted, the effect lasts to the end of the
file. Included files are also affected, eg:
apply account business
include biz.journal
end apply account
apply account personal
include personal.journal
Prior to hledger 1.0, legacy account and end spellings were also sup-
ported.
A default parent account also affects account directives. It does not
affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger-web. If
account aliases are present, they are applied after the default parent
account.
Periodic transactions
Periodic transaction rules describe transactions that recur. They al-
low hledger to generate temporary future transactions to help with
forecasting, so you don't have to write out each one in the journal,
and it's easy to try out different forecasts. Secondly, they are also
used to define the budgets shown in budget reports.
Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them,
read this whole section - or at least these tips:
1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble -
read about this below.
2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with hledger
print --forecast tag:generated or hledger register --forecast
tag:generated.
3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last non-fore-
casted transaction's date.
4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default.
See below for the exact start/end rules.
5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs im-
provement, but is worth studying.
6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a
natural boundary of that interval. Eg in weekly from DATE, DATE
must be a monday. ~ weekly from 2019/10/1 (a tuesday) will give an
error.
7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically expanded
to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done to improve
reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. Yes, it's a bit
inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ~ every 10th day of month from
2020/01, which is equivalent to ~ every 10th day of month from
2020/01/01, will be adjusted to start on 2019/12/10.
Periodic rule syntax
A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the
date replaced by a tilde (~) followed by a period expression (mnemonic:
~ looks like a recurring sine wave.):
~ monthly
expenses:rent $2000
assets:bank:checking
There is an additional constraint on the period expression: the start
date must fall on a natural boundary of the interval. Eg monthly from
2018/1/1 is valid, but monthly from 2018/1/15 is not.
Partial or relative dates (M/D, D, tomorrow, last week) in the period
expression can work (useful or not). They will be relative to today's
date, unless a Y default year directive is in effect, in which case
they will be relative to Y/1/1.
Two spaces between period expression and description!
If the period expression is followed by a transaction description,
these must be separated by two or more spaces. This helps hledger know
where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not acciden-
tally alter their meaning, as in this example:
; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020"
; ||
; vv
~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review
assets:bank:checking $1500
income:acme inc
So,
o Do write two spaces between your period expression and your transac-
tion description, if any.
o Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period ex-
pression.
Forecasting with periodic transactions
With the --forecast flag, each periodic transaction rule generates fu-
ture transactions recurring at the specified interval. These are not
saved in the journal, but appear in all reports. They will look like
normal transactions, but with an extra tag:
o generated-transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR - shows that this was generated
by a periodic transaction rule, and the period
There is also a hidden tag, with an underscore prefix, which does not
appear in hledger's output:
o _generated-transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR
This can be used to match transactions generated "just now", rather
than generated in the past and saved to the journal.
Forecast transactions start on the first occurrence, and end on the
last occurrence, of their interval within the forecast period. The
forecast period:
o begins on the later of
o the report start date if specified with -b/-p/date:
o the day after the latest normal (non-periodic) transaction in the
journal, or today if there are no normal transactions.
o ends on the report end date if specified with -e/-p/date:, or 180
days from today.
where "today" means the current date at report time. The "later of"
rule ensures that forecast transactions do not overlap normal transac-
tions in time; they will begin only after normal transactions end.
Forecasting can be useful for estimating balances into the future, and
experimenting with different scenarios. Note the start date logic
means that forecasted transactions are automatically replaced by normal
transactions as you add those.
Forecasting can also help with data entry: describe most of your trans-
actions with periodic rules, and every so often copy the output of
print --forecast to the journal.
You can generate one-time transactions too: just write a period expres-
sion specifying a date with no report interval. (You could also write
a normal transaction with a future date, but remember this disables
forecast transactions on previous dates.)
Budgeting with periodic transactions
With the --budget flag, currently supported by the balance command,
each periodic transaction rule declares recurring budget goals for the
specified accounts. Eg the first example above declares a goal of
spending $2000 on rent (and also, a goal of depositing $2000 into
checking) every month. Goals and actual performance can then be com-
pared in budget reports.
For more details, see: balance: Budget report and Budgeting and Fore-
casting.
Auto postings / transaction modifiers
Transaction modifier rules, AKA auto posting rules, describe changes to
be applied automatically to certain matched transactions. Currently
just one kind of change is possible - adding extra postings, which we
call "automated postings" or just "auto postings". These rules become
active when you use the --auto flag.
A transaction modifier rule looks much like a normal transaction except
the first line is an equals sign followed by a query that matches cer-
tain postings (mnemonic: = suggests matching). And each "posting" is
actually a posting-generating rule:
= QUERY
ACCT AMT
ACCT [AMT]
...
These posting-generating rules look like normal postings, except the
amount can be:
o a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg $2. This will be used
as-is.
o a number, eg 2. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched post-
ing will be added to this.
o a numeric multiplier, eg *2 (a star followed by a number N). The
matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be multiplied
by N.
o a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg *$2 (a star, number N, and
symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by N, and
its commodity symbol will be replaced with S.
These rules have global effect - a rule appearing anywhere in your data
can potentially affect any transaction, including transactions recorded
above it or in another file.
Some examples:
; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation
= expenses:food
(liabilities:charity) $-1
; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount
= expenses:gifts
assets:checking:gifts *-1
assets:checking *1
2017/12/1
expenses:food $10
assets:checking
2017/12/14
expenses:gifts $20
assets:checking
$ hledger print --auto
2017/12/01
expenses:food $10
assets:checking
(liabilities:charity) $-1
2017/12/14
expenses:gifts $20
assets:checking
assets:checking:gifts -$20
assets:checking $20
Auto postings and dates
A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking
precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also
be used in the generated posting.
Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance asser-
tions
Currently, transaction modifiers are applied / auto postings are added:
o after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked for
balancedness,
o but before balance assertions are checked.
Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and
after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893
for background.
Auto posting tags
Postings added by transaction modifiers will have some extra tags:
o generated-posting:= QUERY - shows this was generated by an auto post-
ing rule, and the query
o _generated-posting:= QUERY - a hidden tag, which does not appear in
hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated "just
now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the journal.
Also, any transaction that has been changed by transaction modifier
rules will have these tags added:
o modified: - this transaction was modified
o _modified: - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this transac-
tion was modified "just now".
EDITOR SUPPORT
Helper modes exist for popular text editors, which make working with
journal files easier. They add colour, formatting, tab completion, and
helpful commands, and are quite recommended if you edit your journal
with a text editor. They include ledger-mode or hledger-mode for
Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, and
others. See the [[Cookbook]] at hledger.org for the latest informa-
tion.
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) 2007-2019 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 1.15.99 September 2019 hledger_journal(5)
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