Simon’s setup

Author: Simon Michael
Last updated: 201903
Tested on: mac mojave
Tested with: hledger 1.14
Tools used: hledger, hledger-ui, GNU make, …

Environment

The LEDGER_FILE environment variable is currently set to /Users/simon/notes/2019.journal. This is done in some super secret way that I’ll have to track down, or more likely several ways, to ensure that it is consistent for:

  • programs started from command line in iTerm/Terminal windows

  • programs started from emacs shell buffers

  • emacs modes such as ledger-mode

  • for both text-mode and graphical emacs, whether started from command line or mac GUI (Dock/Finder/Spotlight)

  • etc.

Files

$ tree ~/notes
/Users/simon/notes
├── 2019.journal
├── 2019.prices
├── all.journal
├── current.journal -> 2019.journal
├── forecast.journal
...

Files are in ~/notes. There’s one YEAR.journal file per year containing all transactions in date order. It includes:

  • YEAR.prices containing P records for the year

  • forecast.journal containing periodic transaction rules

all.journal includes all the year journals. It provides all historical data, but is slow, and my old journals are inconsistent/broken, so it’s currently rarely used.

current.journal is a symlink for scripts which don’t know the year. Symbolic links are a mixed blessing, causing file path confusion in emacs, eg.

Data entry

Most journal entries are generated from downloaded CSV:

  • Transactions from three banks are aggregated and cleaned in a Google sheet by Tiller ($5/mo). A command line tool downloads this sheet as CSV (via cron ? currently disabled).

  • Paypal CSV is downloaded manually, then moved into place by a make rule. I use Paypal’s CSV because Tiller doesn’t handle multiple currencies and Paypal’s extra metadata fields.

For troubleshooting: when downloading a CSV the previous copy is saved as FILE.csv.old.

$ make csv

Cash transactions are entered in emacs, using ledger-mode. Mostly by copying and pasting similar past transactions.

When rewriting account names, I use either ledger-mode completion (TAB) or dabbrev-expand completion (M-/), which have different strengths.

I fetch currency prices with barrucadu’s market-prices.py script (details).

Version control

Journal file, included files, makefile and scripts in git. A mixture of manual and cron-based automatic committing.

Accounts

; Account hierarchy used, any organisational principles, how I maintain it..

Reports

I have convenience aliases for hledger commands and reports in ~/notes/bashrc, which is automatically sourced by my bash profile.

More reports and file-generating scripts are defined in ~/notes/Makefile.

Increasingly, I am moving reports and scripts in a (more powerful and robust) Shake file, ~/notes/do.hs (details).

Workflows / Routines

; Recurring (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly..) workflows