Exporting from hledger

A number of hledger reports support multiple output formats, such as plain text, HTML, JSON, beancount, or SQL. There are also tabular formats such as CSV, TSV, and FODS. See hledger: Output format for full details.

Here are some common ways to export hledger data.

Export journal entries with print

You can print whole journal entries. This usually preserves the most information. txt (AKA hledger journal), beancount, HTML or JSON output formats are good choices here. CSV/TSV/FODS are also supported but there will be multiple records per transaction, which you may need to recombine later.

Examples:

$ hledger print date:2025 -o 2025.json

$ hledger print -o all.beancount

Check the output format docs for additional tips, eg Beancount output may need account aliases.

Export account transactions with aregister

You can export a register (list of changes, plus running balance) with hledger's register command. You should probably export the activity of just one account and one currency at a time. Eg:

$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal reg -O csv checking cur:'\$'
"txnidx","date","code","description","account","amount","total"
"1","2008-01-01","","income","assets:bank:checking","$1","$1"
"2","2008-06-01","","gift","assets:bank:checking","$1","$2"
"3","2008-06-02","","save","assets:bank:checking","$-1","$1"
"5","2008-12-31","","pay off","assets:bank:checking","$-1","0"

But the aregister command may be better for this, because it guarantees one record per transaction even with complex multi-posting transactions, and it shows the other account names (abbreviated), making categorisation easier later:

$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal areg checking -O csv cur:'\$'
"txnidx","date","code","description","otheraccounts","change","balance"
"1","2008-01-01","","income","in:salary","$1","$1"
"2","2008-06-01","","gift","in:gifts","$1","$2"
"3","2008-06-02","","save","as:ba:saving","$-1","$1"
"5","2008-12-31","","pay off","li:debts","$-1","0"

Export report data

You can export the output of other reports, like a balance sheet or income statement. Eg:

$ hledger bs -o bs.html
$ open bs.html

$ hledger is -o is.tsv

If you export as CSV or TSV, you can drag those files into a spreadsheet.

If your spreadsheet can read FODS format, use that instead, to preserve more formatting.

Other