Tips for learning hledger

Pace yourself

Starting out with plain text accounting and hledger, learning enough double entry bookkeeping, setting up a new accounting system, and bringing order to your financial life, can be a lot.

Remember these are valuable skills, which take time to master.

Support

Your fellow users can provide Support. The chats are great for that. (Especially matrix chat, which supports persistent history, long messages, code blocks, reactions, voice/video calls, etc.)

Motivation

Find things that get you in the mood and energised.

Little and often

Accounting is an ongoing activity, best done in regular small doses. The more often you do it, the easier it is, because less has happened and you can remember it. Ten minutes daily can achieve a lot. (Or less, once you get a routine going.)

Small steps

You can start using hledger in very simple ways, and get immediate benefit. If the task feels unclear or overwhelming, identify small steps with clear goals and verifiable results. A good way is to think about your most pressing needs and what kind of report would help.

Example learning plans

For example, you could first build an accurate picture of what you own and owe:

  1. Take inventory of your debts, loans and assets; write down the names and numbers.
  2. Record these as "opening balances" transactions (see the quick start docs).
  3. Make corrections until hledger shows your balances accurately.

Or you could start by tracking movements of money accurately:

  1. Start recording changes to the cash in your wallet, starting with today's balance.
  2. Then start reconciling daily (comparing the reported and actual balance, and troubleshooting any disagreements).
  3. Then start tracking the balance in your checking account.
  4. Then start tracking your other bank accounts.
  5. Then start categorising your incomes and expenses.
  6. Then find your bank transaction history and manually enter the transactions from the previous week.

Then you could learn how to import transactions from CSV (if you wish):

  1. Download your checking account transactions as CSV.
  2. Develop CSV rules so that you can print the CSV as journal entries.
  3. Learn how to import the new transactions from CSV to your journal.
  4. Expand this process to your other bank accounts.
  5. Then try downloading and importing CSV into your journal every day (or every week) for a while.

Look ahead

If you're starting out with PTA, these are some things you'll be doing and learning:

  • Check your hledger setup, and start a journal file.
  • Build up a set of account names/categories best suited to your situation.
  • Learn suitable journal entries for your typical transactions.
  • Learn how to catch and fix errors easily.
  • Learn how to produce reports useful for you.
  • Find convenient and efficient workflows for data entry, reconciling, reporting, backups, etc.

Get good at reconciling

Establish the habit of checking that your reported balances agree with the real world. And learn the troubleshooting techniques (such as viewing the detailed transactions in an account). It is surprising how quickly small events can slip through the cracks and cause confusion. Reconciling often will save you time.

Imperfection

Your bookkeeping does not have to be perfect or even completely accurate (though, you may find accurate bookkeeping satisfying and confidence-building!)

As you practice, you will naturally learn more about the tools and about double-entry accounting, such as how to organise your account categories, and how to write effective journal entries for various real-world events (transactions).

Later you can come back and improve your old journal entries if you wish. You can decide what level of accuracy you need.

Fun

Find ways to make it fun. Connecting with the PTA community online can be one way. And take breaks.