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Ledger, a command-line accounting system

ledger-cli.org

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Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#31

Post by Havoc »

dragonwriter wrote: post #20
Havoc wrote: post #7

WHY? 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

> There are a bunch of legit accounting packages out there. How are they more "legit" than ledger? > No need to re-invent the wheel or (in this case) clean the parade ground with a toothbrush. Ledger's been around for a while. Using it is no more "reinventing the wheel" than using any other accounting package.

>How are they more "legit" than ledger?

Is it widely used? Can you get staff with a couple years experience using ledger? Will accounting staff be productive using the interface? Does it cope well with multiple simultaneous users? Is it compatible with other software? Can you get local support? Can you export/import to other packages? Are the fringe case glitches known?

All these things matter with finance software, even for fairly small operations.

Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#33

Post by Havoc »

bobbyi_settv wrote: post #15
Havoc wrote: post #7

WHY? 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

> Off the shelf SME accounting package Isn't that what this is? For those of us who haven't used this, what makes it less "legit" than competing options?

Copy and paste answer (got the same question 4x):

Is it widely used? Can you get staff with a couple years experience using ledger? Will accounting staff be productive using the interface? Does it cope well with multiple simultaneous users? Is it compatible with other software? Can you get local support? Can you export/import to other packages? Are the fringe case glitches known?

All these things matter with finance software, even for fairly small operations.

Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#34

Post by Havoc »

justinsaccount wrote: post #19
Havoc wrote: post #7

WHY? 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

> There are a bunch of legit accounting packages out there What makes ledger not 'legit'?

Copy & paste (got the same question 3x)

Is it widely used? Can you get staff with a couple years experience using ledger? Will accounting staff be productive using the interface? Does it cope well with multiple simultaneous users? Is it compatible with other software? Can you get local support? Can you export/import to other packages? Are the fringe case glitches known?

All these things matter with finance software, even for fairly small operations.

Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#35

Post by sophacles »

peteretep wrote: post #23
jegutman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> you might want a computer to do all of the work What is "all the work" here? MoneyDance (which I've used for a few years now) imports directly from Amex, my checking account, and three different credit card accounts... It generally classifies correctly, but then I want to manually review each transaction classification manually as some snacks or electronics are business expenditures, some are not... My accounts are…

MoneyDance doesn't appear to be a double entry system. The nice thing about double entry bookkeeping, is it allows some pretty complicated cash-flow tracking - so setting up your accounts for a small business or consultancy is a bit easier.

Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#37

Post by flatM »

Is it possible to attach a receipt (say scanned PDFs) to a Ledger entry? I am interested in ledger, would like it to be the accounting system for my side business, a bit more bookkeeping feature such as the receipt attachment would be great for tax filing purpose.

Edit: I know that Ledger uses plain text for each entry. Though I kind of wonder how do you guys keep those receipts.

Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#38

Post by dragonwriter »

Havoc wrote: post #31
dragonwriter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a bunch of legit accounting packages out there. How are they more "legit" than ledger? > No need to re-invent the wheel or (in this case) clean the parade ground with a toothbrush. Ledger's been around for a while. Using it is no more "reinventing the wheel" than using any other accounting package.

>How are they more "legit" than ledger? Is it widely used? Can you get staff with a couple years experience using ledger? Will accounting staff be productive using the interface? Does it cope well with multiple simultaneous users? Is it compatible with other software? Can you get local support? Can you export/import to other packages? Are the fringe case glitches known? All these things matter with finance software,…

> Is it widely used?

Seems to be fairly popular.

> Can you get staff with a couple years experience using ledger?

It mostly (from the anecdotes I've seen) seems to be used by people who don't have dedicated accounting staff.

> Will accounting staff be productive using the interface?

See previous answer; the "accounting staff" using it are usually programmers, either independent business persons keeping their own books or using it for personal accounts.

They're probably more productive using text-editor + source control + CLI than they would be with a traditional GUI.

> Does it cope well with multiple simultaneous users?

That's an issue mostly offloaded to the VCS, where needed.

> Are the fringe case glitches known?

In quality software, known glitches are fixed.

Re: Ledger, a command-line accounting system

#39

Post by zrail »

flatM wrote: post #37

Is it possible to attach a receipt (say scanned PDFs) to a Ledger entry? I am interested in ledger, would like it to be the accounting system for my side business, a bit more bookkeeping feature such as the receipt attachment would be great for tax filing purpose. Edit: I know that Ledger uses plain text for each entry. Though I kind of wonder how do you guys keep those receipts.

I do this by putting the PDFs in the same git repo as my ledger file, and then adding a filename to the entry as metadata:

  2015/11/04 * (12345) Walgreens
      ; receipt: /receipts/12345.pdf
      Expenses:Medical:RX          $10.00
      Liabilities:Credit Card
It isn't an attachment, strictly speaking, but you can get at it with scripts and such.
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