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Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

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Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#51

Post by CGamesPlay »

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…

You’re spot-on about this. Even for my personal finance, I have to apply classification rules at import time and I can’t bulk edit transactions to reclassify them after the fact. As a result I am looking for a replacement, although a requirement for me is some sort of fava equivalent.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#52

Post by BeetleB »

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…

My ledger file has over $20K entries. Although I'm cheating: I actually input transactions into another SW and simply convert its format to Ledger.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#53

Post by balves »

haberman wrote: post #38
balves wrote: post #22

I switched to beancount after trying several other things (mint, spreadsheets, gnucash), and I like it quite a bit. It's choice to be very strict about things held at cost (like units of stock) is a great differentiation. It's VERY hard to accidentally miss capital gains, or get cost basis wrong on something, or have something not balance. Much harder than even ledger-cli, let alone the other alternatives. It feels a…

> Importers have been great. What importers do you mean? Are these importers you've written yourself, or existing importers you were able to reuse? What format are these importers pulling from (PDF statements, CSV, OFX, etc)?

https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers/tree/m...

https://github.com/jbms/beancount-import

https://beancount.github.io/docs/importing_external_data.htm...

Support for OFX is generally great, CSV is also great. There are some proof of concept things floating around too for PDF.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#54

Post by _benj »

rssoconnor wrote: post #44
_benj wrote: post #33

Switched to beancount from ledger a few months ago and I’m really enjoying the strict syntax of beancount. The cool thing though is that I really didn’t lose any of my reporting flows that I had with (h)ledger… I just made scripts that convert the beancount journal on the fly, run whatever I was used to with hledger, and then delete the temporary file. I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds :)

Did you covert your hledger journal to beancount, or just start anew?

I started anew, just because after having using ledger I wanted to change some accounts, categories, and generally change the way I was doing things before.

But I don't see why I'd be an issue to convert ledger to beancount.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#55

Post by Buttons840 »

_benj wrote: post #29
user3939382 wrote: post #6

This reminds me of ledger: https://www.ledger-cli.org/ * Turns out they address the comparison: https://beancount.github.io/docs/a_comparison_of_beancount_a...

I initially thought that it had to be either/or and when I switched to beancount I was sorely missing then simple balance reports from ledger. What I’ve been doing lately is just generating ledger-formatted ledger on the fly for this that I used ledger before, while still benefiting from the strict beancount format, balance assertions and such that ledger doesn’t have

https://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Balance-asse...

It appears ledger does have balance assertions.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#56

Post by onislandtime »

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?

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#57

Post by hiq »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #51
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…

You’re spot-on about this. Even for my personal finance, I have to apply classification rules at import time and I can’t bulk edit transactions to reclassify them after the fact. As a result I am looking for a replacement, although a requirement for me is some sort of fava equivalent.

> I can’t bulk edit transactions to reclassify them after the fact.

If you store your transactions in a plaintext format, why don't you use CLI tools? I just renamed a bunch of accounts using sed for instance, in a hledger journal.

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#58

Post by raymondh »

Accountant here: Recommend using Beancount with version control on your data so that you can take snapshots at various points in time.

The notion behind "accountants don't user erasers" is that like a blockchain, you're creating a trail of evidence. If all of the data is mutable all of the time, its evidentiary value is low (for example, the IRS gives more weight to "contemporary" evidence than to records constructed or altered after-the-fact).

Another reason to freeze, snapshot, or close your books is to not lose the support and detail behind any financial statements you've produced. Imagine getting a business loan based on your Balance Sheet and Income Statement but later being unable to reconstruct how those were produced.

Generally, accounting systems use a system of cumulative, immutable journal entries. If a mistake is made, then a reversing or adjusting entry is made.¹

There is merit to text based bookkeeping, but don't create a world that is so free form and mutable that it loses it meaning and connection with the real world.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjusting_entries

Re: Beancount: Double-entry accounting from text files

#59

Post by shubhamkrm »

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.

Software Freedom Conservancy uses it for their non-profit accounting. They have published their workflow here: https://github.com/conservancy/npo-ledger-cli/blob/master/np...
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