Docs
hledger has a lot of documentation, to suit different needs. You don’t need to read them all. These docs can also be accessed from the site’s sidebar.
Tutorials
Here are some beginner friendly, step by step tutorials.
- Tutorial: hledger add
- Tutorial: hledger-ui
- Tutorial: hledger-web
- Tutorial: Import CSV data
- Accounting basics for PTA users
- Tips for learning hledger
Or if you’re comfortable with the command line, you could try these:
- Home: A quick example
- 2 minute quick start
- 5 minute quick start
- 10 minute quick start
- hledger manual: Common tasks
- hledger manual: Journal cheatsheet
- Workflows
- hledger and Ledger, for Ledger users
- hledger and Beancount, for Beancount users
Here are some notable blog posts/articles:
- Amitai Burstein: Why We Chose Plain Text Accounting with Hledger - getting started; hledger-ui
- Teo Si-Yan: Making sense of your finances with hledger reports - basic reports
- Matt Maguire: Plain Text Accounting with Emacs, part 2, part 3
- Linux Magazine: Tracking your finances with plain text accounting
Reference
For brief command examples, use the built-in tldr help:
hledger --tldr, hledger balance --tldr, etc
(or in newer versions: hledger --examples, hledger balance --examples).
If you install a tldr viewer you’ll get better output.
You can also view these online:
- hledger - hledger add - hledger accounts - hledger add - hledger aregister - hledger balance - hledger balancesheet - hledger import - hledger incomestatement - hledger print - hledger-ui - hledger-web
The manuals are the authoritative hledger docs; you should skim their tables of contents at least.
To view them offline, run commands like
hledger help, hledger help balance, hledger balance -h, man hledger, info hledger, etc.
Or view them online:
Some other useful reference docs:
hledger by example
This is a book introducing hledger gradually through examples. It’s not finished; let us know what you’d like to see added.
- hledger by example
- Get hledger installed
- Check your setup
- Start a journal
- Add a transaction: starting balances
- Journal entries
- Account names
- More transactions
- Overview of commands
- print: show whole transactions
- register: show detailed changes
- balance: show account totals
- balancesheet: assets and liabilities
- incomestatement: revenues and expenses
- Reading CSV files
- Importing new transactions
- Reading timeclock files
- Reading timedot files
More examples, not part of the book, can be found below.
Videos
Short videos:
- nontproject intros
- You Need to Know Double-Entry Bookkeeping for Personal Finance, part 1 (2026, 8m, Bangla)
- You Need to Learn hledger for Personal Finance: Beginners Guide, part 2 (2026, 20m, Bangla)
- Generate hledger Reports Like a Pro: Beginners Guide, part 3 (2026, 15m, Bangla)
- TORGiren DevOpses: hledger part 1 (2026, 10m, Polish)
- Coder Kaylee: Hledger in 10 Minutes: The Ultimate CLI Tool (2025, 5m)
- hledger fan: beginner lessons (2019-2021, ~3m)
- The Basics: An hledger Transaction
- hledger Basics: 3 Must-Know Options for the Balance Command
- The Basics: The hledger Register Command
- hledger Basics: Focus on Months
- hledger basics: save keystrokes!
- hledger: looking under the hood
- hledger: untie your data with “nots”
- hledger: fun and profit with incomestatement
- hledger: fast fancy formatting
- hledger: who did you pay?
- hledger: bring order to your expenses
- hledger: commands to help with reconciling7
- hledger: shortcuts part 1
- hledger: shortcuts part 2
- hledger: shortcuts part 3
- hledger add
- hledger iadd
Longer talks:
- O Clementino: Faça o Emacs olhar para o dinheiro usando o Embark (2026, 16m, brazilian portuguese)
- O Clementino: Gerencie suas finanças como um hacker (2026, 23m, brazilian portuguese)
- Youngbin Han @ FOSS for All
(2025, slides, korean and english)
Plain Text Accounting with hledger
with short videos of add and web - Glenn Ramsey @ Kiwi Pycon XI (2022, 30m)
Plain text accounting for fun and profit - Simon Michael @ HaskellerZ meetup (2021, 2h)
Inside hledger: an architectural tour and how-to, slides - Conversations in Code, Episode 3: Introduction to Plain Text Accounting (2020, 1h, audio only), discussion
- Intproject Mi: Учет сделок с проводками в текстовом формате (2019, 34m)
- Evolution of hledger (Gource visualization) (2019, 38m)
- Simon Michael @ Brainium meetup (2016, 2h)
Hands-on with hledger - Chris Vollick @ DevHouse Waterloo meetup (2016, 40m)
hledger, an open source accounting tool - FLOSS Weekly episode 375: hledger (2016) - overview (3m), full interview (1h)
See also:
- Youtube: latest “hledger” videos (beware, there’s a ton of AI slop videos - report them if bad)
- PTA: Videos
Cookbook
Other docs, tips, and notes, are collected here.
USING HLEDGER
Checking for errors
Customising
Data entry
- Create a journal
- Getting prices
- How to record journal entries
- How to figure out journal entries
- Importing CSV data
- Cost notation
Examples
- examples/ - examples and snippets, old and new
- examples/csv/ - hledger CSV rules library
Making charts
Other software
- Exporting from hledger
- hledger and Beancount
- hledger and dsq / DataStation
- hledger and just
- hledger and GnuCash
- hledger and Ledger
- hledger and Obsidian
- hledger and Paisa
- hledger and Postgres
- hledger and Quicken/Quickbooks
- hledger and SimpleFIN
- hledger and SQLite
- hledger and Ultorg
- hledger and YNAB
Preserving your data
- Track changes with version control
- Backups, the 3-2-1 rule
Reporting
- Making sense of your finances with hledger reports
- Report examples
- Reporting version control stats
- Rewrite account names
- Rewrite commodity symbols
- Tags tutorial
Scripts and add-ons
Setups and workflows
User interfaces
ACCOUNTING
Accounting and bookkeeping
- Accounting basics for PTA users
- Accounting: further study
- Common journal entries
- PTA: Choosing cash or accrual
Borrowing and lending
Budgeting
Eco accounting
Forecasting
FOSS projects
Inventory tracking
Investing and trading
- PTA Cookbook: Investing and trading
- hledger manual: Cost reporting
- hledger manual: Value reporting
- hledger manual: balance features
- Track investments (2017)
- Track investments (2020)
- Calculate unrealized gain
- Calculate return on investment
- hledger-lots
- Average cost capital gains with hledger 2023
- Track foreign stock capital gains using hledger 2023
- Full-fledged hledger: Manual lot tracking 2024
Invoicing
Multiple currencies
- Multicurrency tutorial (2018)
- Currency conversion (2021)
- hledger manual: Cost reporting
- hledger manual: Value reporting
Non-profit accounting
Taxes
Time tracking
Trip expenses
Shared expenses
See also…
If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, try these: