Ledger, a command-line accounting system
ledger-cli.org
Ledger, a command-line accounting system
1–10 of 169 posts
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#2(Coming from a Windows background) I often wonder what the appeal is to something like this.
(Seriously!) Why would you use something like this over say a spreadsheet? Is it really much easier than opening a browser and running Google Docs???
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#3(Coming from a Windows background) I often wonder what the appeal is to something like this. (Seriously!) Why would you use something like this over say a spreadsheet? Is it really much easier than opening a browser and running Google Docs???
Over a spreadsheet is an easy sell - dual-entry accounting is an absolute revelation.
Over the many good GUI dual-entry accounting programs, I'm not so sure.
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#4Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7707262
Unaffiliated with, but an extremely pleased user of http://www.youneedabudget.com.
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#5(Coming from a Windows background) I often wonder what the appeal is to something like this. (Seriously!) Why would you use something like this over say a spreadsheet? Is it really much easier than opening a browser and running Google Docs???
Over a spreadsheet is an easy sell - dual-entry accounting is an absolute revelation. Over the many good GUI dual-entry accounting programs, I'm not so sure.
Well, you might want a computer to do all of the work and that's easier via a command line app (for most programmers) than doing it all in VBA including parsing a bunch of files and generating the entries.
As for the GUI, still needs to be built on top of something, why not this.
This actually looks really cool and I'm interested in checking it out. I've often thought about how cool it would be to have double entry accounting for every day life.
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#6I like the idea of using ledger-cli for automation, but honestly, this needs a web-ui.
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#7WHY?
There are a bunch of legit accounting packages out there. No need to re-invent the wheel or (in this case) clean the parade ground with a toothbrush. Off the shelf SME accounting package or if you really need it a proper ERP. Anything else is likely to end in tears.
Unless its for your one man show...in which case go wild with the CLI / Excel custom rolled solutions & sundry DIYs.
Source: Accountant
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#8I like the idea of using ledger-cli for automation, but honestly, this needs a web-ui.
There are various projects that use a similar file format and approach, this one has a web ui:
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#9(Coming from a Windows background) I often wonder what the appeal is to something like this. (Seriously!) Why would you use something like this over say a spreadsheet? Is it really much easier than opening a browser and running Google Docs???
* ledger is for double-entry accounting. Doing that in a spreadsheet can be a huge pain. When you then want to query the data in different ways, that will add a ton of complexity to your spreadsheet.
* It is plain text, so you can keep your data in version control.
* It has awesome reporting capabilities. These are builtin, so you don't have to create them from scratch.
Spreadsheets are nice and simple, but once you do anything moderately complex you are asking for bugs under all of your hidden formulas.
Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system
#10(Coming from a Windows background) I often wonder what the appeal is to something like this. (Seriously!) Why would you use something like this over say a spreadsheet? Is it really much easier than opening a browser and running Google Docs???
Over a spreadsheet is an easy sell - dual-entry accounting is an absolute revelation. Over the many good GUI dual-entry accounting programs, I'm not so sure.
Well something like quickbooks its much more transparent and Ledger isn't constantly trying to upsell you some service :-) Agreed on the spreadsheet, its balance checking is really the key feature here that spreadsheets don't do.
The simplicity of simple text files means you don't have to worry about your files not being readable by a future you. Which is not the case of every 'gui' dual-entry accounting system to date. Seriously, pick any system you could have used in 2000 and figure out if you can read its files now.