hledger

Robust, friendly, fast,
plain text accounting.

hledger is friendly, fast, and dependable accounting software for tracking money, investments, cryptocurrencies, time, or any countable commodity. It uses human-readable plain text data that you control.

You can import CSV data from banks, or enter data via web/terminal interfaces or your favorite text editor. hledger provides powerful reports and scales smoothly from simple to sophisticated needs. It works well with version control, scripts, and LLMs. Read more at Why hledger ? and FAQ.

A quick example

Transactions are recorded in a plain text file. This simple format, invented by the Ledger project, is the key to understanding Plain Text Accounting and Double Entry Bookkeeping:

; ~/.hledger.journal

2025-12-01 Starting balance
    equity            $-1000     ; <- $1000 moves from (-) the "equity" account
    assets:checking    $1000     ; <- to (+) the "assets:checking" account

2025-12-02 Grocery store
    assets:checking              ; <- a missing amount is inferred ($-64.50)
    expenses:groceries  $64.50

2025-12-03 Client payment
    income:consulting
    assets:checking    $1500

2025-12-04 Rent
    assets:checking
    expenses:rent     $800

This file is all you need. From it, hledger generates precise reports:

$ hledger aregister assets
Transactions in assets and subaccounts:
2025-12-01 Starting balance   equity                  $1000.00      $1000.00
2025-12-02 Grocery store      ex:groceries             $-64.50       $935.50
2025-12-03 Client payment     in:consulting           $1500.00      $2435.50
2025-12-04 Rent               ex:rent                 $-800.00      $1635.50

$ hledger balance
            $1635.50  assets:checking
           $-1000.00  equity
              $64.50  expenses:groceries
             $800.00  expenses:rent
           $-1500.00  income:consulting
--------------------
                   0

$ hledger is --pretty --tree --daily --row-total --average --begin 2025/12/2
Daily Income Statement 2025-12-02..2025-12-04

┌───────────────────╥────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬──────────┬─────────┐
│                   ║ 2025-12-02 │ 2025-12-03 │ 2025-12-04 │    Total │ Average │
╞═══════════════════╬════════════╪════════════╪════════════╪══════════╪═════════╡
│ Revenues          ║            │            │            │          │         │
├───────────────────╫────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ income:consulting ║          0 │   $1500.00 │          0 │ $1500.00 │ $500.00 │
├───────────────────╫────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│                   ║          0 │   $1500.00 │          0 │ $1500.00 │ $500.00 │
╞═══════════════════╬════════════╪════════════╪════════════╪══════════╪═════════╡
│ Expenses          ║            │            │            │          │         │
├───────────────────╫────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ expenses          ║     $64.50 │          0 │    $800.00 │  $864.50 │ $288.17 │
│   groceries       ║     $64.50 │          0 │          0 │   $64.50 │  $21.50 │
│   rent            ║          0 │          0 │    $800.00 │  $800.00 │ $266.67 │
├───────────────────╫────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│                   ║     $64.50 │          0 │    $800.00 │  $864.50 │ $288.17 │
╞═══════════════════╬════════════╪════════════╪════════════╪══════════╪═════════╡
│ Net:              ║    $-64.50 │   $1500.00 │   $-800.00 │  $635.50 │ $211.83 │
└───────────────────╨────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴──────────┴─────────┘

or runs other actions:

$ hledger check --strict
hledger: Error: /Users/simon/.hledger.journal:2:
  | 2025-12-01 Starting balance
2 |     equity                   $-1000
  |                              ^^^^^^
  |     assets:checking           $1000

Strict commodity checking is enabled, and
commodity "$" has not been declared.
Consider adding a commodity directive. Examples:

commodity $1000.00
commodity 1.000,00 $

$ hledger add
Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/.hledger.journal
...
Date [2025-12-13]:
Description: groc
Using this similar transaction for defaults:
2025-12-02 Grocery store
    assets:checking            $-64.50
    expenses:groceries          $64.50

Account 1 [assets:checking]:
Amount  1 [$-64.50]: _

$ hledger web
...
Serving web UI and json API at IP address 127.0.0.1 (local access), port 5000
with base url http://127.0.0.1:5000
This server will exit after 2m with no browser windows open (or press ctrl-c)
Opening web browser...

hledger web is a simple web UI you can use locally or over the internet. You can see a read-only instance with more complex data at demo.hledger.org.

Get started

Try it for yourself:

Install - quickly get hledger installed. Here are release notes.
Docs - many learning resources. hledger by example is a good place to start.
Support - ask questions or share feedback.

Get involved

Would you like to help ?

Star us on Github to help make us a notable Haskell app.
Sponsor hledger to help sustain this work. Here’s more about Finance.
Contributor Quick Start and Developer docs.
CREDITS shows many of the people who have contributed code over the years.

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