hledger!

hledger is...

• free GPL-licensed accounting software that runs on unix, mac, windows, and the web
• based on readable, version-controllable, future-proof plain text files
• good for tracking money, investments, time, or any countable commodity
• good for learning more about double entry accounting
• shipped with web, terminal, command line, JSON and Haskell interfaces
• the most user friendly plain text accounting app
• comparable to Ledger and Beancount
• built with Haskell
• fast, lightweight, reliable (we pay $100 for regression reports)
• free from vendor lock-in
• local, not cloud-based; your private financial data remains under your control
• scripting-friendly and automatable
• comfortable for technical users, but also usable by others. Knowing about command lines, text editors and version control is helpful, but not required (much)
• good at importing CSV from banks and other financial institutions
• actively developed and supported by Simon Michael and contributors since 2007
• strengthened by your feedback, work and funding. 🙏🏻

Features tells more, or don't hesitate to join Discussion/Support chat and ask questions.

Quick start

Welcome! This plain text accounting stuff is useful and more fun than it sounds - care to give it a try ?

Install, then see Get Started, or the Examples below, or run hledger to see help and demos. Full documentation is ready when you need it, in the sidebar to the left. (If not visible, click/tap the horizontal-lines icon at top left.)

Examples

Here are three transactions in journal format, recorded in the journal file ($LEDGER_FILE or ~/.hledger.journal) by hledger add or other method. The account names and amounts are separated by at least two spaces; a positive amount means "added to this account", negative means "removed from this account". hledger will check that each transaction's amounts sum to zero; one of them may be omitted for convenience.

2023-01-01 opening balances            ; <- First transaction sets starting balances.
    assets:bank:checking        $1000  ; <- Account names can be anything.
    assets:bank:savings         $2000  ; <- Colons indicate subaccounts.
    assets:cash                  $100  ; <- 2+ spaces are required before the amount.
    liabilities:credit card      $-50  ; <- A debt; these are negative.
    equity:opening/closing     $-3050  ; <- Starting balances come from equity.
                                       ;    Equity is also usually negative.
                                       ;    (Reports can show as positive when needed.)

2023-02-01 GOODWORKS CORP              ; <- Date order is recommended but optional.
    assets:bank:checking       $1000
    income:salary                      ; <- $-1000 is inferred here to balance the txn.
                                       ;    Income amounts are negative.

2023-02-15 market
    expenses:food             $50
    assets:cash                        ; <- $-50 is inferred here.

You can run reports like so:

$ hledger bs
Balance Sheet 2023-02-15

                         || 2023-02-15 
=========================++============
 Assets                  ||            
-------------------------++------------
 assets:bank:checking    ||      $2000 
 assets:bank:savings     ||      $2000 
 assets:cash             ||        $50 
-------------------------++------------
                         ||      $4050 
=========================++============
 Liabilities             ||            
-------------------------++------------
 liabilities:credit card ||        $50 
-------------------------++------------
                         ||        $50 
=========================++============
 Net:                    ||      $4000 

$ hledger is -MTA
Income Statement 2023-01-01..2023-02-28

               || Jan    Feb    Total  Average 
===============++==============================
 Revenues      ||                              
---------------++------------------------------
 income:salary ||   0  $1000    $1000     $500 
---------------++------------------------------
               ||   0  $1000    $1000     $500 
===============++==============================
 Expenses      ||                              
---------------++------------------------------
 expenses:food ||   0    $50      $50      $25 
---------------++------------------------------
               ||   0    $50      $50      $25 
===============++==============================
 Net:          ||   0   $950     $950     $475 

$ hledger aregister checking
Transactions in assets:bank:checking and subaccounts:
2023-01-01 opening balances     as:ba:savings, as:..         $1000         $1000
2023-02-01 GOODWORKS CORP       in:salary                    $1000         $2000

Declarations

If you use other account names, it's useful to declare their account types:

account actifs                          ; type:Asset, 2+ spaces required before the ;
account actifs:banque:compte courant    ; type:Cash
account actifs:banque:compte d'épargne  ; type:Cash
account actifs:espèces                  ; type:Cash
account passifs                         ; type:Liability
account capitaux propres                ; type:Equity
account revenus                         ; type:Revenue
account dépenses                        ; type:Expense

Or declare all accounts, currencies and tags, if you want strict error checking:

account assets                   ; type:A, 2+ spaces required before the ;
account assets:bank              ; type:C
account assets:bank:checking
account assets:bank:savings
account assets:cash              ; type:C
account liabilities              ; type:L
account liabilities:credit card
account equity                   ; type:E
account equity:opening/closing
account income                   ; type:R
account income:salary
account income:gifts
account expenses                 ; type:X
account expenses:rent
account expenses:food
account expenses:gifts

commodity $1000.00

tag type

$ hledger check --strict
$ 

Declaring accounts also helps set their preferred display order:

$ hledger accounts -t
assets
  bank
    checking
    savings
  cash
liabilities
  credit card
equity
  opening/closing
income
  salary
  gifts
expenses
  rent
  food
  gifts

You can declare account aliases to save typing:

alias chk  = assets:bank:checking
alias cash = assets:cash
alias card = liabilities:creditcard
alias food = expenses:food

...

2023-02-15 market
    food          $50
    cash

Other UIs

Instead of using the command line, you could run hledger-ui or hledger-web. Here are the command line, terminal, and web interfaces, with more complex data:

Time tracking

hledger can also read time logs in timeclock format:

i 2023/03/27 09:00:00 projects:a
o 2023/03/27 17:00:34
i 2023/03/31 22:21:45 personal:reading:online
o 2023/04/01 02:00:34

$ hledger -f 2023.timeclock register -D
2023-03-27   projects:a                         8.01h         8.01h
2023-03-31   personal:reading:online            1.64h         9.65h
2023-04-01   personal:reading:online            2.01h        11.66h

Or in timedot format:

2023/2/1
biz:research  .... ..
fos:hledger   .... .... ....

2023/2/2
fos:ledger    0.25
fos:haskell   .5
biz:client1   .... ....

$ hledger -f 2023.timedot balance -tDTA  # tree, Daily, Total, Average
Balance changes in 2023-02-01..2023-02-02:

            || 2023-02-01  2023-02-02    Total  Average 
============++==========================================
 biz        ||       1.50        2.00     3.50     1.75 
   client1  ||          0        2.00     2.00     1.00 
   research ||       1.50           0     1.50     0.75 
 fos        ||       3.00        0.75     3.75     1.88 
   haskell  ||          0        0.50     0.50     0.25 
   hledger  ||       3.00           0     3.00     1.50 
   ledger   ||          0        0.25     0.25     0.12 
------------++------------------------------------------
            ||       4.50        2.75     7.25     3.62 

CSV import

hledger can read CSV (or SSV, TSV, or other character-separated) files representing transactions:

"Date","Notes","Amount"
"2023/2/22","DEPOSIT","50.00"
"2023/2/23","TRANSFER TO SAVINGS","-10.00"

# bank.csv.rules  # this rules file tells hledger how to read bank.csv
skip 1
fields date, description, amount
currency $
account1 assets:bank:checking

if WHOLE FOODS
 account2 expenses:food

if (TO|FROM) SAVINGS
 account2 assets:bank:savings

$ hledger -f bank.csv print
2023-02-22 DEPOSIT
    assets:bank:checking          $50.00
    income:unknown               $-50.00

2023-02-23 TRANSFER TO SAVINGS
    assets:bank:checking         $-10.00
    assets:bank:savings           $10.00

The import command detects and adds just new transactions to the journal (works with most CSVs):

$ hledger import bank.csv
imported 2 new transactions from bank.csv

$ hledger import bank.csv
no new transactions found in bank.csv

$ hledger aregister checking
2023-01-01 opening balances     as:ba:savings, as:..      $1000.00      $1000.00
2023-02-01 GOODWORKS CORP       in:salary                 $1000.00      $2000.00
2023-02-22 DEPOSIT              in:unknown                  $50.00      $2050.00
2023-02-23 TRANSFER TO SAVINGS  as:ba:savings              $-10.00      $2040.00

More examples...

• Charts and Graphs
• Common workflows
• HTML reports
• Importing CSV data
• Interop with other software
• Mobile apps
• Scripts and Scripting
• Track investments (2017) and Track investments (2020)

• The full hledger Cookbook
• wiki.plaintextaccounting.org

See also

• hledger list
• 
• Discussion/Support

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