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Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

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Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#121

Post by trs-80 »

onislandtime wrote: post #56

With no background in accounting, I was impressed with the Beancount documentation. Very well written and a great way to learn accounting. I am looking for a solution to track my investments but I find it a bit overwhelming to get started with Beancount from scratch. Is there a tool to convert brokerage data into Beancount data from scratch?

> I was impressed with the Beancount documentation.

Me too, one of main reasons for choosing it.

> Is there a tool to convert brokerage data into Beancount data from scratch?

Problem is they are all different. But other people share what they have come up with. Maybe check the mailing list, also search for Red's Importers. If those do not work for you 'out of the box', you might need to hack something together. But you can get help on the mailing list.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#122

Post by trs-80 »

darcys22 wrote: post #47

Shameless self plug: ive been building a similar open source command line accounting system https://github.com/darcys22/godbledger Its heavily inspired by both ledger and beancount but my biggest issue with them is that text files arnt great for double entry bookkeeping. Having a relational database is the better option which is what GoDBLedger has. After a certain point a business cant keep track of its transactions…

Using plain text as the storage medium is not a bug, it's a feature.

Anyway, Martin is working on v3 which is moving the core of the parser into a complied language, in order to make it even faster when parsing large datasets.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#123

Post by trs-80 »

rthomas6 wrote: post #100

I use this. I set up Fava served over my home network so my wife can look at the budget. There is an android app called Cone that lets you add entries. I sync between phone and PC with Syncthing. It all works really well.

There is also a Beancount specific one: https://github.com/xuhcc/beancount-mobile

It's available in F-Droid.

I found it worked better for me.

But I only use that for cash or other things where I don't get a receipt. For the 99% I do get a receipt, I take a photo of said receipt. Then I deal with it later at my desktop or laptop where I have a real keyboard.

I actually wrote some helper script that works on top of Dired (in Emacs) to gather things like Payee and accounts using a completing-read (narrowing) style interface. This reduces friction A LOT, which I think is one of the keys to success in any chore.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#124

Post by trs-80 »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #81

Beancount and the concept of plaintext accounting look really interesting. Any recommendations for guides or short books to get into accounting for personal/individual finance as a total beginner?

It has been linked already a few times, but https://plaintextaccounting.org really is an excellent resource.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#125

Post by trs-80 »

fernovus wrote: post #85
bingohbangoh wrote: post #10

Out of curiosity: has anybody used this to do business accounting? I am intrigued by these ultra simple setups. However, most accountants -- the people who will ultimately help you once your business is sufficiently complex -- will use Quickbooks or some other established software.

> has anybody used this to do business accounting? Keep in mind that these projects were born for personal accounting that use the cash-basis approach. Business are more complex and require an accrual approach, simplyfying we can say that they recognize revenues in a period only when these are certain, and recognize expenses related to these revenues in the same period, even if the expense occurs before or after the…

You can use accrual basis in Beancount.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#126

Post by smichael »

raspyberr wrote: post #9

Does anyone know if there's a good app I can use for plaintext accounting on my phone? I'd love to be able to use syncthing to sync the ledger on my PC and phone. It'd really help me stop collecting receipts so I can bulk put them in when I get home.

https://hledger.org/mobile-apps.html gives some ideas.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#127

Post by tinodb »

jonathanoliver wrote: post #104

My company and I have been using Beancount since 2017 for all financial records. My company has about 60 employees and there are three individuals working in/on the financials regularly. Beancount (plaintext accounting) was the only solution that worked for us. We have many hundreds of thousands of transactions. We do both cash basis accounting (personal) and accrual accounting (company). We use Sublime Text with the…

That’s really cool! Are there any report layouts or BeanSQL that you could share? I always struggle with those…
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