I’ve been a long-time user of (h)ledger.
I use a custom script to generate a cost basis when computing capital gains for selling transactions.
Are there any recent updates or tools that improve cost-basis tracking or capital gains handling in hledger?
When I had this need I put together https://src.d10.dev/lotter. It takes as input ledger-cli entries and puts out entries with lot info added, which you can then run through `ledger`. You can quickly scan its output and see if what it does makes sense to you.
The repo hasn't seen activity for a while, but AFAIK it still works. I just haven't needed it myself recently.
Book (digital and/or print, free and/or paid) recommendations to learn proper and effective use of this kind of accounting to manage personal/family and self-employment finances.
Best resource would assume competency in undergraduate-level math, but assume no financial competency beyond "you have a checking account, maybe a credit card, and are familiar with receiving income and making payments, and you understand the importance of keeping your bank balance above zero".
I can see how this is _not_ for everybody. It is a lot of work, especially if you're just starting out and there are gazillion things you own(lucky you). But it's worth it. You are always informed and it has changed my perspective on personal finance completely.
Shouldn't it be possible to encapsulate something like this with SQLite and produce an accounting engine that can guarantee consistent numbers and generate key numbers (trial balance, P&L, gearing, ...) ?
I’ve written a bunch of Python scripts to do my books using hledger. The nice thing is I no longer pay the $75/month for Quickbooks.
Sure it means I can’t hire a bookkeeper to do my books anymore but it literally takes me like 15 mins to do my books since I can just add rules to my scripts as needed and most of my business now has a standard AR and AP.
I used to use GnuCash, but a small yet constant irritation for me was how the entry's date (that is, the date when I authorized the transaction) wouldn't always match the clearing date of the transaction as reported by my bank in their statements.
hledger, however, has support for adding 'posting dates' as specially formatted comments. What's really clever is how it automatically chooses which date to sort the reports by depending on the query!
For example, say I have a ledger that exclusively contains entries consisting of credits to a assets account (bank) and debits to an expense account (shopping). The date of the debit is earlier, because I acquired the goods at the shop. The date of the credit is later because it takes a while for the payment to clear between the banks. Some payments take longer to clear than others so the order isn't the same.
If I ask hledger for a report of all recent transactions that involve expenses, it will sort by the dates on the debit lines. But if I ask hledger for a report of all the recent transactions that involve assets it'll use the credit dates instead! This makes reconciliation with my bank statements so much easier and tidier whilst still keeping an accurate record of when I actually made the transactions.
To offer another option for a graphical FOSS budgeting app, I switched to https://actualbudget.org a few months back and it's great.
It's like YNAB, but with less magic. Plus sophisticated features like a rules engine for automatically filling envelopes and cleaning up spare funds at the end of the month.
I host it on Pikapods for cheap, and connect to my bank accounts with SimpleFINs.
I've tried a lot of budget apps, and this is the happiest I've been with one in a long time.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 32.4 ms ] threadThe repo hasn't seen activity for a while, but AFAIK it still works. I just haven't needed it myself recently.
Best resource would assume competency in undergraduate-level math, but assume no financial competency beyond "you have a checking account, maybe a credit card, and are familiar with receiving income and making payments, and you understand the importance of keeping your bank balance above zero".
Sure it means I can’t hire a bookkeeper to do my books anymore but it literally takes me like 15 mins to do my books since I can just add rules to my scripts as needed and most of my business now has a standard AR and AP.
hledger, however, has support for adding 'posting dates' as specially formatted comments. What's really clever is how it automatically chooses which date to sort the reports by depending on the query!
For example, say I have a ledger that exclusively contains entries consisting of credits to a assets account (bank) and debits to an expense account (shopping). The date of the debit is earlier, because I acquired the goods at the shop. The date of the credit is later because it takes a while for the payment to clear between the banks. Some payments take longer to clear than others so the order isn't the same.
If I ask hledger for a report of all recent transactions that involve expenses, it will sort by the dates on the debit lines. But if I ask hledger for a report of all the recent transactions that involve assets it'll use the credit dates instead! This makes reconciliation with my bank statements so much easier and tidier whilst still keeping an accurate record of when I actually made the transactions.
It's like YNAB, but with less magic. Plus sophisticated features like a rules engine for automatically filling envelopes and cleaning up spare funds at the end of the month.
I host it on Pikapods for cheap, and connect to my bank accounts with SimpleFINs.
I've tried a lot of budget apps, and this is the happiest I've been with one in a long time.