balance: show account totals
balance shows (by default) the total balance change per account, usually for multiple accounts at once:
$ hledger balance
750 USD assets:bank:checking
100 USD assets:cash
-700 USD equity:start
200 USD expenses:food
800 USD expenses:rent
50 USD expenses:supplies
-200 USD liabilities:credit card
-1000 USD revenues:salary
--------------------
0
The balance command is quite flexible.
The above is its original output style (as in Ledger), with amounts on the left.
Specifying a report interval, like monthly, enables more modern tabular output, with a title.
Eg here are the changes broken down by month (there's only one month in this case):
$ hledger balance -M
Balance changes in 2025-01:
|| Jan
=========================++===========
assets:bank:checking || 750 USD
assets:cash || 100 USD
equity:start || -700 USD
expenses:food || 200 USD
expenses:rent || 800 USD
expenses:supplies || 50 USD
liabilities:credit card || -200 USD
revenues:salary || -1000 USD
-------------------------++-----------
|| 0
or by day:
$ hledger balance -D
Balance changes in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
=========================++================================================
assets:bank:checking || 200 USD 1000 USD -200 USD -250 USD
assets:cash || 100 USD 0 0 0
equity:start || -700 USD 0 0 0
expenses:food || 0 0 0 200 USD
expenses:rent || 800 USD 0 0 0
expenses:supplies || 0 0 0 50 USD
liabilities:credit card || -400 USD 0 200 USD 0
revenues:salary || 0 -1000 USD 0 0
-------------------------++------------------------------------------------
|| 0 0 0 0
-D/--daily is the smallest interval it can show.
If you need more detail than that, use a register report.
Eg, to see the detailed changes to checking on 2025-01-03:
$ hledger register checking date:2025-01-03
2025-01-03 pay half of credi.. assets:bank:checking -200 USD -200 USD
Usually we restrict balance to certain accounts:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities
750 USD assets:bank:checking
100 USD assets:cash
-200 USD liabilities:credit card
--------------------
650 USD
Here's a daily expenses report:
$ hledger balance expenses -D
Balance changes in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
===================++================================================
n expenses:food || 0 0 0 200 USD
expenses:rent || 800 USD 0 0 0
expenses:supplies || 0 0 0 50 USD
-------------------++------------------------------------------------
|| 800 USD 0 0 250 USD
We can add Total and Average columns:
$ hledger balance expenses -DTA
Balance changes in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04 Total Average
===================++===================================================================
expenses:food || 0 0 0 200 USD 200 USD 50 USD
expenses:rent || 800 USD 0 0 0 800 USD 200 USD
expenses:supplies || 0 0 0 50 USD 50 USD 12 USD
-------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------
|| 800 USD 0 0 250 USD 1050 USD 262 USD
Sort by amount, and show amounts as percentages of their column total:
$ hledger balance expenses -DTAS -%
Balance changes in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04 Total Average
===================++==================================================================
expenses:rent || 100.0 % 0 0 0 76.2 % 76.2 %
expenses:food || 0 0 0 80.0 % 19.0 % 19.0 %
expenses:supplies || 0 0 0 20.0 % 4.8 % 4.8 %
-------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------
|| 100.0 % 0 0 100.0 % 100.0 % 100.0 %
Hide all but the Total/Average columns:
$ hledger balance expenses -DTAS --summary-only
Balance changes in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| Total Average
===================++===================
expenses:rent || 800 USD 200 USD
expenses:food || 200 USD 50 USD
expenses:supplies || 50 USD 12 USD
-------------------++-------------------
|| 1050 USD 262 USD
Show the daily changes in asset and liability accounts:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -D
Balance changes in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
=========================++================================================
assets:bank:checking || 200 USD 1000 USD -200 USD -250 USD
assets:cash || 100 USD 0 0 0
liabilities:credit card || -400 USD 0 200 USD 0
-------------------------++------------------------------------------------
|| -100 USD 1000 USD 0 -250 USD
It's important to note that despite its name, the "balance" command shows balance changes by default.
But it can also show the resulting balances, if you add the -H/--historical flag.
Notice the change of title:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -DH
Ending balances (historical) in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
=========================++================================================
assets:bank:checking || 200 USD 1200 USD 1000 USD 750 USD
assets:cash || 100 USD 100 USD 100 USD 100 USD
liabilities:credit card || -400 USD -400 USD -200 USD -200 USD
-------------------------++------------------------------------------------
|| -100 USD 900 USD 900 USD 650 USD
This is especially important if you restrict the report by date; it ensures that balances from earlier postings are included, to show correct historical balances (as you would see in bank statements):
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -DH date:2025-01-03..
Ending balances (historical) in 2025-01-03..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
=========================++========================
assets:bank:checking || 1000 USD 750 USD
assets:cash || 100 USD 100 USD
liabilities:credit card || -200 USD -200 USD
-------------------------++------------------------
|| 900 USD 650 USD
Colons in account names indicate subaccounts. So we can show balances reports in tree mode, showing the account hierarchy. In tree mode, the changes or balances of parent accounts include the changes or balances of subaccounts:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -DHt --no-elide
Ending balances (historical) in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
===============++================================================
assets || 300 USD 1300 USD 1100 USD 850 USD
bank || 200 USD 1200 USD 1000 USD 750 USD
checking || 200 USD 1200 USD 1000 USD 750 USD
cash || 100 USD 100 USD 100 USD 100 USD
liabilities || -400 USD -400 USD -200 USD -200 USD
credit card || -400 USD -400 USD -200 USD -200 USD
---------------++------------------------------------------------
|| -100 USD 900 USD 900 USD 650 USD
Usually we don't bother with --no-elide; then hledger will collapse
some identical lines to save space:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -DHt
Ending balances (historical) in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
=========================++================================================
assets || 300 USD 1300 USD 1100 USD 850 USD
bank:checking || 200 USD 1200 USD 1000 USD 750 USD
cash || 100 USD 100 USD 100 USD 100 USD
liabilities:credit card || -400 USD -400 USD -200 USD -200 USD
-------------------------++------------------------------------------------
|| -100 USD 900 USD 900 USD 650 USD
We can use --depth NUM or just -NUM to summarise the report down to a certain account depth.
Depth 1 means just the top level accounts:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -DHt -1
Ending balances (historical) in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| 2025-01-01 2025-01-02 2025-01-03 2025-01-04
=============++================================================
assets || 300 USD 1300 USD 1100 USD 850 USD
liabilities || -400 USD -400 USD -200 USD -200 USD
-------------++------------------------------------------------
|| -100 USD 900 USD 900 USD 650 USD
--transpose exchanges the rows and columns, useful eg when reports are very wide.
And -N hides the usual totals row:
$ hledger balance assets liabilities -DHN -1 --transpose
Ending balances (historical) in 2025-01-01..2025-01-04:
|| assets liabilities
============++=======================
2025-01-01 || 300 USD -400 USD
2025-01-02 || 1300 USD -400 USD
2025-01-03 || 1100 USD -200 USD
2025-01-04 || 850 USD -200 USD
balance has a lot of options.
Next, we'll see two specialised balance-like reports that are easier to use.
(Part of hledger by example.)