Ubuntu Manpage: hledger - robust, friendly plain text accounting (CLI version)

NAME

       hledger - robust, friendly plain text accounting (CLI version)

SYNOPSIS

       hledger
       hledger COMMAND     [OPTS] [ARGS]
       hledger ADDONCMD -- [OPTS] [ARGS]

DESCRIPTION

hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs for tracking money,
time, or any other commodity, using double-entry accounting and a simple, editable file
format. hledger is inspired by and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely
interconvertible with beancount(1).

This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.30.1. It also describes
the common options, file formats and concepts used by all hledger programs. It might
accidentally teach you some bookkeeping/accounting as well! You don't need to know
everything in here to use hledger productively, but when you have a question about
functionality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip ahead or skim when
needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an info manual or man page on your system.
You can also get it from hledger itself with
hledger --man, hledger --info or hledger help [TOPIC].

The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files describing financial
transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a useful report on the terminal (or save it as
HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also
detect other hledger-* executables as extra subcommands.

hledger usually reads from (and appends to) a journal file specified by the LEDGER_FILE
environment variable (defaulting to $HOME/.hledger.journal); or you can specify files with
-f options. It can also read timeclock files, timedot files, or any CSV/SSV/TSV file with
a date field.

Here is a small journal file describing one transaction:

2015-10-16 bought food
expenses:food $10
assets:cash

Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more accounts: bank
accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, people, etc. You can choose any
account names you wish, using : to indicate subaccounts. There must be at least two
spaces between account name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account
(debit), negatives are outflow from it (credit). (Some reports show revenue, liability
and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; this is normal.)

hledger’s add command can help you add transactions, or you can install other data entry
UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more extensive/efficient changes, use a text
editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM + vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good
choices (see https://hledger.org/editors.html).

To get started, run hledger add and follow the prompts, or save some entries like the
above in $HOME/.hledger.journal, then try commands like:
hledger print -x
hledger aregister assets
hledger balance
hledger balancesheet
hledger incomestatement.
Run hledger to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal file" and "Setting
opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS.

PART 1: USER INTERFACE

Input

       hledger reads one or more data files, each time you run it.  You can specify a  file  with
       -f, like so

              $ hledger -f FILE print

       Files  are  most  often  in  hledger's  journal  format,  with the .journal file extension
       (.hledger or .j also work); these files describe transactions, like an accounting  general
       journal.

       When no file is specified, hledger looks for .hledger.journal in your home directory.

       But most people prefer to keep financial files in a dedicated folder, perhaps with version
       control.  Also, starting a new journal file each year is common (it's  not  required,  but
       helps  keep things fast and organised).  So we usually configure a different journal file,
       by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable, to something like ~/finance/2023.journal.
       For more about how to do that on your system, see Common tasks > Setting LEDGER_FILE.

   Data formats
       Usually  the  data  file  is  in  hledger's  journal  format,  but it can be in any of the
       supported file formats, which currently are:

       Reader:     Reads:                                    Used      for      file
                                                             extensions:
       ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       journal     hledger  journal  files and some Ledger   .journal  .j   .hledger
                   journals, for transactions                .ledger
       timeclock   timeclock  files,  for   precise   time   .timeclock
                   logging
       timedot     timedot  files,  for  approximate  time   .timedot
                   logging
       csv         CSV/SSV/TSV/character-separated values,   .csv      .ssv     .tsv
                   for data import                           .csv.rules   .ssv.rules
                                                             .tsv.rules

       These formats are described in more detail below.

       hledger  detects the format automatically based on the file extensions shown above.  If it
       can't recognise the file extension, it assumes journal format.  So for non-journal  files,
       it's important to use a recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to
       show relevant error messages.

       You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path with the format and
       a colon.  Eg, to read a .dat file as csv format:

              $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats

   Standard input
       The file name - means standard input:

              $ cat FILE | hledger -f- print

       If reading non-journal data in this way, you'll need to add a file format prefix, like:

              $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -f timeclock:-

   Multiple files
       You  can  specify  multiple  -f  options, to read multiple files as one big journal.  When
       doing this, note that certain features (described below) will be affected:

       • Balance assertions will not see the effect of transactions in previous files.   (Usually
         this doesn't matter as each file will set the corresponding opening balances.)

       • Some directives will not affect previous or subsequent files.

       If  needed,  you  can  work  around these by using a single parent file which includes the
       others, or concatenating the files into one, eg: cat a.journal  b.journal  |  hledger  -f-
       CMD.

   Strict mode
       hledger  checks  input  files  for  valid data.  By default, the most important errors are
       detected, while still accepting easy journal files without a lot of declarations:

       • Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ?

       • Are all transactions balanced ?

       • Do all balance assertions pass ?

       With the -s/--strict flag, additional checks are performed:

       • Are all accounts posted to,  declared  with  an  account  directive  ?   (Account  error
         checking)

       • Are all commodities declared with a commodity directive ?  (Commodity error checking)

       • Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ?

       You  can  use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones listed above and some
       more.

Commands

hledger provides various subcommands for getting things done. Most of these commands do
not change the journal file; they just read it and output a report. A few commands assist
with adding data and file management.

To show the commands list, run hledger with no arguments. The commands are described in
detail in PART 4: COMMANDS, below.

To use a particular command, run hledger CMD [CMDOPTS] [CMDARGS],

• CMD is the full command name, or its standard abbreviation shown in the commands list,
or any unambiguous prefix of the name.

• CMDOPTS are command-specific options, if any. Command-specific options must be written
after the command name. Eg: hledger print -x.

• CMDARGS are additional arguments to the command, if any. Most hledger commands accept
arguments representing a query, to limit the data in some way. Eg: hledger reg
assets:checking.

To list a command's options, arguments, and documentation in the terminal, run hledger CMD
-h. Eg: hledger bal -h.

Add-on commands
In addition to the built-in commands, you can install add-on commands: programs or scripts
named "hledger-SOMETHING", which will also appear in hledger's commands list. If you used
the hledger-install script, you will have several add-ons installed already. Some more
can be found in hledger's bin/ directory, documented at https://hledger.org/scripts.html.

More precisely, add-on commands are programs or scripts in your shell's PATH, whose name
starts with "hledger-" and ends with no extension or a recognised extension (".bat",
".com", ".exe", ".hs", ".js", ".lhs", ".lua", ".php", ".pl", ".py", ".rb", ".rkt", or
".sh"), and (on unix and mac) which has executable permission for the current user.

You can run add-on commands using hledger, much like built-in commands: hledger ADDONCMD
[-- ADDONCMDOPTS] [ADDONCMDARGS]. But note the double hyphen argument, required before
add-on-specific options. Eg: hledger ui -- --watch or hledger web -- --serve. If this
causes difficulty, you can always run the add-on directly, without using hledger: hledger-
ui --watch or hledger-web --serve.

Options

       Run hledger -h to see general command line help, and general options which are  common  to
       most  hledger  commands.  These options can be written anywhere on the command line.  They
       can be grouped into help, input, and reporting options:

   General help options
       -h --help
              show general or COMMAND help

       --man  show general or COMMAND user manual with man

       --info show general or COMMAND user manual with info

       --version
              show general or ADDONCMD version

       --debug[=N]
              show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1)

   General input options
       -f FILE --file=FILE
              use  a  different  input  file.   For  stdin,  use  -  (default:  $LEDGER_FILE   or
              $HOME/.hledger.journal)

       --rules-file=RULESFILE
              Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules)

       --separator=CHAR
              Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',')

       --alias=OLD=NEW
              rename accounts named OLD to NEW

       --anon anonymize accounts and payees

       --pivot FIELDNAME
              use some other field or tag for the account name

       -I --ignore-assertions
              disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance assignments)

       -s --strict
              do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are declared)

   General reporting options
       -b --begin=DATE
              include  postings/txns  on  or  after  this  date  (will  be  adjusted to preceding
              subperiod start when using a report interval)

       -e --end=DATE
              include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to following subperiod end
              when using a report interval)

       -D --daily
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by day

       -W --weekly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by week

       -M --monthly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by month

       -Q --quarterly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter

       -Y --yearly
              multiperiod/multicolumn report by year

       -p --period=PERIODEXP
              set  start  date,  end  date,  and/or  reporting  interval all at once using period
              expressions syntax

       --date2
              match the secondary date instead (see command help for other effects)

       --today=DATE
              override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for tests/examples)

       -U --unmarked
              include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C)

       -P --pending
              include only pending postings/txns

       -C --cleared
              include only cleared postings/txns

       -R --real
              include only non-virtual postings

       -NUM --depth=NUM
              hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep

       -E --empty
              show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in hledger-ui/hledger-
              web)

       -B --cost
              convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time

       -V --market
              convert amounts to their market value in default valuation commodities

       -X --exchange=COMM
              convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM

       --value
              convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than -B/-V/-X

       --infer-equity
              infer conversion equity postings from costs

       --infer-costs
              infer costs from conversion equity postings

       --infer-market-prices
              use costs as additional market prices, as if they were P directives

       --forecast
              generate  transactions  from  periodic rules, between the latest recorded txn and 6
              months from today, or during the specified PERIOD (= is  required).   Auto  posting
              rules  will  be  applied  to  these transactions as well.  Also, in hledger-ui make
              future-dated transactions visible.

       --auto generate extra postings by applying auto  posting  rules  to  all  txns  (not  just
              forecast txns)

       --verbose-tags
              add   visible   tags   indicating   transactions   or   postings  which  have  been
              generated/modified

       --commodity-style
              Override the commodity style in  the  output  for  the  specified  commodity.   For
              example 'EUR1.000,00'.

       --color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)
              Should  color-supporting  commands  use  ANSI  color  codes in text output.  'auto'
              (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color-supporting  terminal.   'always'  or
              'yes':  always,  useful  eg  when  piping  output into 'less -R'.  'never' or 'no':
              never.  A NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this.

       --pretty[=WHEN]
              Show prettier output, e.g.  using unicode box-drawing  characters.   Accepts  'yes'
              (the  default)  or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', 'never' also work).  If you provide an
              argument you must use '=', e.g.  '--pretty=yes'.

       When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line,  the  last  one  takes
       precedence.

       Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments.

Command line tips

Here are some details useful to know about for hledger command lines (and elsewhere).
Feel free to skip this section until you need it.

Option repetition
If options are repeated in a command line, hledger will generally use the last (right-
most) occurence.

Special characters
Single escaping (shell metacharacters)
In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as spaces, <, >, (, ),
|, $ and \ - should be "shell-escaped" if you want hledger to see them. This is done by
enclosing them in single or double quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to
match an account name containing a space:

$ hledger register 'credit card'

or:

$ hledger register credit\ card

Windows users should keep in mind that cmd treats single quote as a regular character, so
you should be using double quotes exclusively. PowerShell treats both single and double
quotes as quotes.

Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters)
Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such as ., ^, $, [, ],
(, ), |, and \ - may need to be "regex-escaped" if you don't want them to be interpreted
by hledger's regular expression engine. This is done by writing backslashes before them,
but since backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both shell-escaping and
regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal $ sign while using the bash shell:

$ hledger balance cur:'\$'

or:

$ hledger balance cur:\\$

Triple escaping (for add-on commands)
When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described below), one level of
shell-escaping is lost from any options or arguments intended for by the add-on command,
so those need an extra level of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal $ sign while using
the bash shell and running an add-on command (ui):

$ hledger ui cur:'\\$'

or:

$ hledger ui cur:\\\\$

If you wondered why four backslashes, perhaps this helps:

unescaped: $
escaped: \$
double-escaped: \\$
triple-escaped: \\\\$

Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable directly:

$ hledger-ui cur:\\$

Less escaping
Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell command line,
where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should use one less level of escaping.
Those places include:

• an @argumentfile

• hledger-ui's filter field

• hledger-web's search form

• GHCI's prompt (used by developers).

Unicode characters
hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly:

• they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command line, by all hledger
tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit forms, etc.)

• they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on-screen alignment should
be preserved.

This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips:

• A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can decode the characters
being used. In bash, you can set a locale like this: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There
are some more details in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger
will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled programs).

• your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) must support unicode

• the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode glyphs

• the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as double width (for report
alignment)

• on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind of environment in
which it was built. Eg hledger built in the standard CMD.EXE environment (like the
binaries on our download page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys
terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961).

Regular expressions
hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places:

• query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form: REGEX, desc:REGEX,
cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX

• CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ...

• account alias directive and --alias option: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT, --alias
/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT

hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If they're not doing what
you expect, it's important to know exactly what they support:

1. they are case insensitive

2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing being matched)

3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions)

4. they also support GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, \>)

5. they do not support backreferences; if you write \1, it will match the digit 1. Except
when doing text replacement, eg in account aliases, where backreferences can be used in
the replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search regexp.

6. they do not support mode modifiers ((?s)), character classes (\w, \d), or anything else
not mentioned above.

Some things to note:

• In the alias directive and --alias option, regular expressions must be enclosed in
forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger, these are not required.

• In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like $ as a literal character,
prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts with the dollar sign in hledger-web,
write cur:\$.

• On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special meaning to the shell and
so must be escaped at least once more. See Special characters.

Argument files
You can save a set of command line options and arguments in a file, and then reuse them by
writing @FILENAME as a command line argument. Eg: hledger bal @foo.args.

Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or argument. Don't use
spaces except inside quotes (or you'll see a confusing error); write = (or nothing)
between a flag and its argument. For the special characters mentioned above, use one less
level of quoting than you would at the command prompt.

Output

Output destination
hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can of course redirect
this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax:

$ hledger print > foo.txt

Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also provide the -o/--output-
file option, which does the same thing without needing the shell. Eg:

$ hledger print -o foo.txt
$ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default)

Output format
Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the terminal. Here are those
commands and the formats currently supported:

- txt csv html json sql
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
aregister Y Y Y Y
balance Y 1 Y 1 Y 1,2 Y
balancesheet Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y
balancesheetequity Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y
cashflow Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y
incomestatement Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y
print Y Y Y Y
register Y Y Y

• 1 Also affected by the balance commands' --layout option.

• 2 balance does not support html output without a report interval or with --budget.

The output format is selected by the -O/--output-format=FMT option:

$ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout

or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the -o/--output-
file=FILE.FMT option:

$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv

The -O option can be combined with -o to override the file extension, if needed:

$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt

Some notes about the various output formats:

CSV output
• In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are disabled
automatically.

HTML output
• HTML output can be styled by an optional hledger.css file in the same directory.

JSON output
• This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome.

• Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful representation of hledger's
internal data types. To understand the JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which
are mostly in https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-
lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs.

• hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 significant digits, eg
for repeating decimals. Such numbers can arise in practice (from automatically-
calculated transaction prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we
show quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don't limit the
number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We hope this approach
will not cause problems in practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf
#1195)

SQL output
• This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome.

• SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and Postgres.

• For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated id field to be a PRIMARY
KEY. Eg:

$ hledger print -O sql | sed 's/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g' | ...

• SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will be executed in the
empty database. If you already have tables created via SQL output of hledger, you would
probably want to either clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL
statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped.

Commodity styles
When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for each
commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style.

If needed, this can be overridden by a -c/--commodity-style option (except for cost
amounts and amounts displayed by the print command, which are always displayed with all
decimal digits). For example, the following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as
shown:

$ hledger print -c '$1.000,0'

This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple commodities/currencies.
Its argument is as described in the commodity directive.

Colour
In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal supports it:

• if the --color/--colour option is given a value of yes or always (or no or never),
colour will (or will not) be used;

• otherwise, if the NO_COLOR environment variable is set, colour will not be used;

• otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) supports it.

Box-drawing
In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to render prettier
tables:

• if the --pretty option is given a value of yes or always (or no or never), unicode
characters will (or will not) be used;

• otherwise, unicode characters will not be used.

Paging
When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the pager specified by
the PAGER environment variable, or less, or more. (A pager is a helper program that shows
one page at a time rather than scrolling everything off screen). Currently it does this
only for help output, not for reports; specifically,

• when listing commands, with hledger

• when showing help with hledger [CMD] --help,

• when viewing manuals with hledger help or hledger --man.

Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses eg for bold emphasis.
For the common pager less (and its more compatibility mode), we add R to the LESS and MORE
environment variables to make this work. If you use a different pager, you might need to
configure it similarly, to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us know). Otherwise, you can
set the NO_COLOR environment variable to 1 to disable all ANSI output (see Colour).

Debug output
We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and develop. You can
add --debug[=N] to any hledger command line to see additional debug output. N ranges from
1 (least output, the default) to 9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and
increase until you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not affected by
-o/--output-file (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: 2>&1). It will be interleaved
with normal output, which can help reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To
capture debug output in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg:

hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log

Environment

       These environment variables affect hledger:

       COLUMNS  This  is  normally  set  by  your terminal; some hledger commands (register) will
       format their output to this width.  If not  set,  they  will  try  to  use  the  available
       terminal width.

       LEDGER_FILE  The  main  journal  file  to use when not specified with -f/--file.  Default:
       $HOME/.hledger.journal.

       NO_COLOR If this environment variable is set (with any value), hledger will not  use  ANSI
       color codes in terminal output, unless overridden by an explicit --color/--colour option.

PART 2: DATA FORMATS

Journal

hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's a cheatsheet/mini-
tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal format.

Journal cheatsheet
# Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format
# (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax).
# hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order:

###############################################################################
# 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things.
# They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment".

# hash comment line
; semicolon comment line
comment
These lines
are commented.
end comment

# Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them,
# from ; (semicolon) to end of line.

###############################################################################
# 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way.
# They begin with a word or letter (or symbol).

account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;.
account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX)
alias chkg = assets:checking
commodity $0.00
decimal-mark .
include /dev/null
payee Whole Foods
P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40
~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description
expenses:food $400
expenses:home $1000
budgeted

###############################################################################
# 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events,
# usually describing movements of money.
# They begin with a date.

# DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment.
# ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment.
# ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented.
# ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount.
# ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0).

2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way
assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type.
assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common.
assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts.
liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative.
equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here.

2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes
; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared".
; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status.
; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit:
assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit)
expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit)
; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts"

2022-01-01 ; The description is optional.
; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side.
assets:cash:wallet GBP -10
expenses:clothing GBP 10
assets:gringotts -10 gold
assets:pouch 10 gold
revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols
assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted.

2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@
assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost
assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost
assets:checking $-7.00

2022-01-02 assert balances
; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction.
assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA
assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold
assets:savings $0 = $1000

1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required.
; Postings are not required.

2022.01.01 These date
2022/1/1 formats are
12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended).

About journal format
hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal entries in hledger
journal format. This file represents a standard accounting general journal. I use file
names ending in .journal, but that's not required. The journal file contains a number of
transaction entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between two or
more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger and humans.

hledger's journal format is compatible with most of Ledger's journal format, but not all
of it. The differences and interoperation tips are described at hledger and Ledger. With
some care, and by avoiding incompatible features, you can keep your hledger journal
readable by Ledger and vice versa. This can useful eg for comparing the behaviour of one
app against the other.

You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use the add or web or
import commands to create and update it.

Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and track changes with a
version control system such as git. Editor addons such as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for
Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier,
adding colour, formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor configuration
at hledger.org for the full list.

Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's data model).

A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file comments, transactions,
and/or directives (counting periodic transaction rules and auto posting rules as
directives).

Comments
Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (#) or a semicolon (;).
(See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore regions beginning with a comment line
and ending with an end comment line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing
between them:

• # for top-level notes

• ; for commenting out things temporarily

• comment for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's there, or you might get
confused)

Eg:

# a comment line
; another commentline
comment
A multi-line comment block,
continuing until "end comment" directive
or the end of the current file.
end comment

Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, from ; (semicolon) to
end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting comments, and Account comments below.

Transactions
Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They represent events,
typically a movement of some quantity of commodities between two or more named accounts.

Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a simple date in column 0.
This can be followed by any of the following optional fields, separated by spaces:

• a status character (empty, !, or *)

• a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses)

• a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon)

• a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of line, and any following
indented lines beginning with a semicolon)

• 0 or more indented posting lines, describing what was transferred and the accounts
involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, but not blank lines or non-indented
lines).

Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction:

2008/01/01 income
assets:bank:checking $1
income:salary $-1

Dates
Simple dates
Dates in the journal file use simple dates format: YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD,
with leading zeros optional. The year may be omitted, in which case it will be inferred
from the context: the current transaction, the default year set with a Y directive, or the
current date when the command is run. Some examples: 2010-01-31, 2010/01/31, 2010.1.31,
1/31.

(The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart dates documented in
the hledger manual.)

Posting dates
You can give individual postings a different date from their parent transaction, by adding
a posting comment containing a tag (see below) like date:DATE. This is probably the best
way to control posting dates precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in
May reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for easy bank
reconciliation:

2015/5/30
expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30
assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1

$ hledger -f t.j register food
2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10

$ hledger -f t.j register checking
2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10

DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use the year of the
transaction's date.
The date: tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg a date: tag with no
value is not allowed.

Status
Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a status mark, which
is a single character before the transaction description or posting account name,
separated from it by a space, indicating one of three statuses:

mark status
──────────────────
unmarked
! pending
* cleared

When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked, -P/--pending, and
-C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in
hledger-ui.

Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state is called
"uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to unmarked for clarity.

To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pending, combine -U and
-P.

Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with real-world accounts.
Some editor modes provide highlighting and shortcuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs
ledger-mode, you can toggle transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-
c.

What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you. Here's one
suggestion:

status meaning
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review

pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big
reconciliation)
cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered
correct

With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your bank, -U to see
things which will probably hit your bank soon (like uncashed checks), and no flags to see
the most up-to-date state of your finances.

Code
After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally write a transaction
"code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good place to record a check number, or some
other important transaction id or reference number.

Description
A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date and status mark (or
until a comment begins). Sometimes called the "narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it
can be used for whatever you wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be
queried, unlike comments.

Payee and note
You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to subdivide the
description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the left (up to the first |) and
an additional note field on the right (after the first |). This may be worthwhile if you
need to do more precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note.

Transaction comments
Text following ;, after a transaction description, and/or on indented lines immediately
below it, form comments for that transaction. They are reproduced by print but otherwise
ignored, except they may contain tags, which are not ignored.

2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment
; a second line of transaction comment
expenses 1
assets

Postings
A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount from, an account.
Each posting line begins with at least one space or tab (2 or 4 spaces is common),
followed by:

• (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space

• (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single spaces, until end of
line or a double space)

• (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount.

Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are being removed.

The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a convenience, one amount
may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to balance the transaction.

Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name and amount. This
makes it easy to write account names containing spaces. But if you accidentally leave
only one space (or tab) before the amount, the amount will be considered part of the
account name.

Account names
Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in Double Entry
Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such as a bank account), or more
abstract categories such as "money borrowed from Frank" or "money spent on electricity".

You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the traditional
accounting categories, which in english are assets, liabilities, equity, revenues,
expenses. (You might see these referred to as A, L, E, R, X for short.)

For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts into more detailed
subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account name parts. For example, from the
account names assets:bank:checking and expenses:food, hledger will infer this hierarchy of
five accounts:

assets
assets:bank
assets:bank:checking
expenses
expenses:food

Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear:

assets
bank
checking
expenses
food

hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you can go as deep as you
like with subcategories, but keeping your account names relatively simple may be best when
starting out.

Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, numbers, symbols, or
single spaces. Note, when an account name and an amount are written on the same line,
they must be separated by two or more spaces (or tabs).

Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate virtual postings,
described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to the account name have no special
meaning.

Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account aliases.

Amounts
After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: between account name and
amount, there must be two or more spaces.)

hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international formats. Here are
some examples. Amounts have a number (the "quantity"):

..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this below), to the left or
right of the quantity, with or without a separating space:

$1
4000 AAPL
3 "green apples"

Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is the default), The
sign can be written before or after a left-side commodity symbol:

-$1
$-1

One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable when parsing (but they
won't be displayed in output):

+ $1
$- 1

Scientific E notation is allowed:

1E-6
EUR 1E3

Decimal marks, digit group marks
A decimal mark can be written as a period or a comma:

1.23
1,23456780000009

In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups of digits can
optionally be separated by a digit group mark - a space, comma, or period (different from
the decimal mark):

$1,000,000.00
EUR 2.000.000,00
INR 9,99,99,999.00
1 000 000.9455

Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal mark is ambiguous. Are
these digit group marks or decimal marks ?

1,000
1.000

If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above are decimal marks,
parsing both numbers as 1.

To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, especially if your data
contains digit group marks (eg, thousands separators), we recommend explicitly declaring
the decimal mark character in each journal file, using a directive at the top of the file.
The decimal-mark directive is best, otherwise commodity directives will also work. These
are described below.

Commodity
Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal number, and a
"commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or any word or phrase describing
something you are tracking.

If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or punctuation), you must
always write it inside double quotes ("green apples", "ABC123").

If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with name ""; we call
that the "no-symbol commodity".

Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more powerful multi-
commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of the time. A multi-commodity
amount could be, eg: 1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 TSLA. In practice, you will only see multi-
commodity amounts in hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file.

(If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these are the Amount and
MixedAmount types.)

Directives influencing number parsing and display
You can add decimal-mark and commodity directives to the journal, to declare and control
these things more explicitly and precisely. These are described below, but here's a quick
example:

# the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities)
decimal-mark .

# display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities:
commodity $1,000.00
commodity EUR 1.000,00
commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00
commodity 1 000 000.9455

Commodity display style
For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display style to use in
most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all amounts displayed by the print command,
are displayed with all of their decimal digits visible.)

A commodity's display style is inferred as follows.

First, if a default commodity is declared with D, this commodity and its style is applied
to any no-symbol amounts in the journal.

Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in order of preference:

• The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol commodity), if any.

• The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. (Posting amounts
only; prices and periodic or auto rules are ignored, currently.)

• The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: $1000.00. (Symbol on the left,
period decimal mark, two decimal places.)

A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows:

• Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first amount

• Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group sizes), if any

• Use the maximum number of decimal places of all.

Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but occasionally they can
do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is inferred using a cost). If you find this
causing problems, use a commodity directive to fix the display style.

To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the style declared by a
commodity directive, or (b) the style of the first posting amount in the journal, with the
first-seen digit group style and the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your
reports are showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal places, use
a commodity directive. Some examples:

# declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their
# input number formats and output display styles:
commodity EUR 1.000,
commodity $1000.00
commodity 1000.00000000 BTC
commodity 1 000.

The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command line option.

Rounding
Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal places, and
displayed with the number of decimal places specified by the commodity display style.
Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5
displayed with zero decimal places is "0").

Costs
After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling price (when
selling) in another commodity, by writing either @ UNITPRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE after it.
This indicates a conversion transaction, where one commodity is exchanged for another.

(You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, discussions, or code;
that term was directionally neutral and reminded that it is a price specific to a
transaction, but we now just call it "cost", with the understanding that the transaction
could be a purchase or a sale.)

Costs are usually written explicitly with @ or @@, but can also be inferred automatically
for simple multi-commodity transactions. Note, if costs are inferred, the order of
postings is significant; the first posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of
the second.

As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign currency in hledger,
using the cost notation either explicitly or implicitly:

1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount:

2009/1/1
assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each
assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00

2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount:

2009/1/1
assets:euros €100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot
assets:dollars

3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and let hledger infer
the price that balances the transaction. Note the effect of posting order: the price
is added to first posting, making it €100 @@ $135, as in example 2:

2009/1/1
assets:euros €100 ; one hundred euros purchased
assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135

Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the -B/--cost flag; this is
discussed more in the ˜COST REPORTING section.

Note that the cost normally should be a positive amount, though it's not required to be.
This can be a little confusing, see discussion at --infer-market-prices: market prices
from transactions.

Other cost/lot notations
A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a number of cost/lot-
related notations:

• @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST

• expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger

• when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at selling time

• (@) UNITCOST and (@@) TOTALCOST (virtual cost)

• like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, don't use it when inferring
market prices".

Currently, hledger treats the above like @ and @@; the parentheses are ignored.

• {=FIXEDUNITCOST} and {{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}} (fixed price)

• when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't let it fluctuate in value
reports"

• {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} (lot price)

• can be used identically to @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST, also creates a lot

• when selling, combined with @ ..., specifies an investment lot by its cost basis; does
not check if that lot is present

• and related: [YYYY/MM/DD] (lot date)

• when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot

• when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date

• (SOME TEXT) (lot note)

• when buying, attaches this note to the lot

• when selling, selects a lot by its note

Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after the posting amount,
but ignores them. (This can break transaction balancing.)

For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different:

• @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST

• expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger

• when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined with {...}: documents
the cost/selling price (not used for transaction balancing)

• {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}}

• when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction balancing, and also
creates a lot with this cost basis attached

• when selling (reducing),

• selects a lot by its cost basis

• raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be selected unambiguously
(depending on booking method configured)

• expresses the selling price for transaction balancing

Currently, hledger accepts the {UNITCOST}/{{TOTALCOST}} notation but ignores it.

• variations: {}, {YYYY-MM-DD}, {"LABEL"}, {UNITCOST, "LABEL"}, {UNITCOST, YYYY-MM-DD,
"LABEL"} etc.

Currently, hledger rejects these.

Balance assertions
hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. These look like, for
example, = EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's amount. Eg here we assert the expected
dollar balance in accounts a and b after each posting:

2013/1/1
a $1 =$1
b =$-1

2013/1/2
a $1 =$2
b $-1 =$-2

After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions and report an
error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can protect you from, eg, inadvertently
disrupting reconciled balances while cleaning up old entries. You can disable them
temporarily with the -I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting
or for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently does not disable balance
assignments, described below).

Assertions and ordering
hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and then (for postings on
the same day) by parse order. Note this is different from Ledger, which sorts assertions
only by parse order. (Also, Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of
repeated postings to the same account within a transaction.)

So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently-dated transactions
within the journal. But if you reorder same-dated transactions or postings, assertions
might break and require updating. This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise
control over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra-
day balances.

Assertions and multiple included files
Multiple files included with the include directive are processed as if concatenated into
one file, preserving their order and the posting order within each file. It means that
balance assertions in later files will see balance from earlier files.

And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, split across multiple
files, and you want to assert the account's balance on that day, you'll need to put the
assertion in the right file - the last one in the sequence, probably.

Assertions and multiple -f files
Unlike include, when multiple files are specified on the command line with multiple
-f/--file options, balance assertions will not see balance from earlier files. This can
be useful when you do not want problems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in
later files.

If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use include, or concatenate
the files temporarily.

Assertions and commodities
The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in fact the assertion
checks only this commodity's balance within the (possibly multi-commodity) account
balance. This is how assertions work in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial"
balance assertion.

To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can write multiple
postings, each asserting one commodity's balance.

You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double equals sign (==
EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other commodities in the account besides
the asserted one (or at least, that their balance is 0).

2013/1/1
a $1
a 1€
b $-1
c -1€

2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed
a 0 = $1
a 0 = 1€
b 0 == $-1
c 0 == -1€

2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1€
a 0 == $1

It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that has multiple
commodities. One workaround is to isolate each commodity into its own subaccount:

2013/1/1
a:usd $1
a:euro 1€
b

2013/1/2
a 0 == 0
a:usd 0 == $1
a:euro 0 == 1€

Assertions and prices
Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without one:

2019/1/1
(a) $1 @ €1 = $1

We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them, even though they
don't affect whether the assertion passes or fails. This is for backward compatibility
(hledger's close command used to generate balance assertions with prices), and because
balance assignments do use them (see below).

Assertions and subaccounts
The balance assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from subaccounts; they
check the account's exclusive balance only. You can assert the balance including
subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg:

2019/1/1
equity:opening balances
checking:a 5
checking:b 5
checking 1 ==* 11

Assertions and virtual postings
Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they are not affected
by the --real/-R flag or real: query.

Assertions and auto postings
Balance assertions are affected by the --auto flag, which generates auto postings, which
can alter account balances. Because auto postings are optional in hledger, accounts
affected by them effectively have two balances. But balance assertions can only test one
or the other of these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either:

• assert the balance calculated with --auto, and always use --auto with that file

• or assert the balance calculated without --auto, and never use --auto with that file

• or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings (or avoid auto
postings entirely).

Assertions and precision
Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are not always what is
shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may limit the display precision, but this will
not affect balance assertions. Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts.

Posting comments
Text following ;, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented lines immediately below
it, form comments for that posting. They are reproduced by print but otherwise ignored,
except they may contain tags, which are not ignored.

2012-01-01
expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1
assets
; a comment for posting 2
; a second comment line for posting 2

Tags
Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, postings, or
accounts, which you can then search or pivot on.

They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately followed by a full colon,
in a transaction or posting or account directive's comment. (This is an exception to the
usual rule that things in comments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are
recorded: one on the checking account, two on the transaction, and one on the expenses
posting:

account assets:checking ; accounttag:

2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1:
; transactiontag-2:
assets:checking $-1
expenses:food $1 ; postingtag:

Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. And transactions
also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' accounts). So in the example above,
the expenses posting effectively has all four tags (by inheriting from account and
transaction), and the transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses
posting).

You can list tag names with hledger tags [NAMEREGEX], or match by tag name with a
tag:NAMEREGEX query.

Tag values
Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a comma or end of line
(with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this means that hledger tag values can not
contain commas. Eg in the following posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value
2", and "" (empty) respectively:

expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz

Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than overriding: when the same tag
name is seen again with a new value, the new name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is
not possible to override a tag's value or remove a tag.)

You can list a tag's values with hledger tags TAGNAME --values, or match by tag value with
a tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX query.

Directives
Besides transactions, there is something else you can put in a journal file: directives.
These are declarations, beginning with a keyword, that modify hledger's behaviour. Some
directives can have more specific subdirectives, indented below them. hledger's
directives are similar to Ledger's in many cases, but there are also many differences.
Directives are not required, but can be useful. Here are the main directives:

purpose directive
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
READING DATA:
Rewrite account names alias
Comment out sections of the file comment
Declare file's decimal mark, to help decimal-mark
parse amounts accurately
Include other data files include
GENERATING DATA:
Generate recurring transactions or ~
budget goals
Generate extra postings on existing =
transactions
CHECKING FOR ERRORS:
Define valid entities to provide more account, commodity, payee, tag
error checking
REPORTING:
Declare accounts' type and display order account
Declare commodity display styles commodity
Declare market prices P

Directives and multiple files
Directives vary in their scope, ie which journal entries and which input files they
affect. Most often, a directive will affect the following entries and included files if
any, until the end of the current file - and no further. You might find this
inconvenient! For example, alias directives do not affect parent or sibling files. But
there are usually workarounds; for example, put alias directives in your top-most file,
before including other files.

The restriction, though it may be annoying at first, is in a good cause; it allows reports
to be stable and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Without it, reports
could show different numbers depending on the order of -f options, or the positions of
include directives in your files.

Directive effects
Here are all hledger's directives, with their effects and scope summarised - nine main
directives, plus four others which we consider non-essential:

directive what it does ends
at
file
end?
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
account Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; and N
its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored.
alias Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of Y
current file or end aliases. Command line equivalent: --alias
comment Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file or Y
end comment.
commodity Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checking N,Y,N,N
all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing
amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of
current file (if there is no decimal-mark directive) 3. and the
display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is also
the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in this
commodity. Takes precedence over D. Subdirectives: format
(Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent:
-c/--commodity-style
decimal- Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all Y
mark commodities in following entries until next decimal-mark or end
of current file. Included files can override. Takes precedence
over commodity and D.
include Includes entries and directives from another file, as if they N
were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple
-f/--file
payee Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N
P Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N
reports.
~ (tilde) Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N
transactions with --forecast and budget goals with balance
--budget.
Other
syntax:
apply Prepends a common parent account to all account names, in Y
account following entries until end of current file or end apply
account.
D Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N
there is no commodity directive for this commodity: its decimal
mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above.
Y Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y
entries until end of current file.
= Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly
(equals) matched transactions with --auto, in current, parent, and child
files (but not sibling files, see #1212).
Other Other directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but
Ledger ignored.
directives

account directive
account directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places that amounts are
transferred from and to). Though not required, these declarations can provide several
benefits:

• They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a reference.

• In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by transactions, which
helps detect typos.

• They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alphabetic sorting (eg
Revenues to appear above Expenses).

• They help with account name completion (in hledger add, hledger-web, hledger-iadd,
ledger-mode, etc.)

• They can store additional account information as comments, or as tags which can be used
to filter or pivot reports.

• They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, equity, revenue,
expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and incomestatement.

They are written as the word account followed by a hledger-style account name, eg:

account assets:bank:checking

Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not allowed to have
surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts used in postings. So the following
journal will not parse:

account (assets:bank:checking)

Account comments
Text following two or more spaces and ; at the end of an account directive line, and/or
following ; on indented lines immediately below it, form comments for that account. They
are ignored except they may contain tags, which are not ignored.

The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because ; is allowed in
account names.

account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon
; next-line comment
; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345

Account subdirectives
Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently ignored:

account assets:bank:checking
format subdirective is ignored

Account error checking
By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence when a posting
references them. This is convenient, but it means hledger can't warn you when you mis-
spell an account name in the journal. Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra
account in balance reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling.

In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report an error if any
transaction uses an account name that has not been declared by an account directive. Some
notes:

• The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the correct account name
capitalisation.

• The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see directives). This means it
affects all of the current file, and any files it includes, but not parent or sibling
files. The position of account directives within the file does not matter, though it's
usual to put them at the top.

• Accounts can only be declared in journal files, but will affect included files of all
types.

• It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" with a wildcard; every
account posted to must be declared.

Account display order
The order in which account directives are written influences the order in which accounts
appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By default accounts appear in
alphabetical order, but if you add these account directives to the journal file:

account assets
account liabilities
account equity
account revenues
account expenses

those accounts will be displayed in declaration order:

$ hledger accounts -1
assets
liabilities
equity
revenues
expenses

Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order.

Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group of sibling accounts
under the same parent. And currently, this directive:

account other:zoo

would influence the position of zoo among other's subaccounts, but not the position of
other among the top-level accounts. This means:

• you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account other above) that you don't
intend to post to, just to customize their display order

• sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between a:b and a:c).

Account types
hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, expenses and so
on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and incomestatement, and filtering by
account type with the type: query.

As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types automatically if you are using
common english-language top-level account names (described below). But generally we
recommend you declare types explicitly, by adding a type: tag to your top-level account
directives. Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The tag's value should be
one of the five main account types:

• A or Asset (things you own)

• L or Liability (things you owe)

• E or Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets & liabilities)

• R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA income; technically part of Equity)

• X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity)

or, it can be (these are used less often):

• C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cashflow report)

• V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST REPORTING).)

Here is a typical set of account type declarations:

account assets ; type: A
account liabilities ; type: L
account equity ; type: E
account revenues ; type: R
account expenses ; type: X

account assets:bank ; type: C
account assets:cash ; type: C

account equity:conversion ; type: V

Here are some tips for working with account types.

• The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. These are just a
convenience that sometimes help new users get going; if they don't work for you, just
ignore them and declare your account types. See also Regular expressions.

If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is:
--------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------
^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash
^assets?(:|$) | Asset
^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability
^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion
^equity(:|$) | Equity
^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue
^expenses?(:|$) | Expense

• If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an account for all of the
account types, because a mixture of declared and name-inferred types can disrupt certain
reports.

• Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See Rewriting accounts >
Aliases and account types.

• As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent account. More
precisely, an account's type is decided by the first of these that exists:

1. A type: declaration for this account.

2. A type: declaration in the parent accounts above it, preferring the nearest.

3. An account type inferred from this account's name.

4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, preferring the nearest parent.

5. Otherwise, it will have no type.

• For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with:

$ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES]

alias directive
You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or parts of them,
before generating reports. This can be useful for:

• expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier data entry and a
less verbose journal

• adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts

• experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy

• combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference on one line

• customising reports

Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. They do not affect
account names being entered via hledger add or hledger-web.

Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use correctly, but you can
also generate invalid account names with them; more on this below.

CSV

       hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, semicolon, or  tab)
       containing dated records, automatically converting each record into a transaction.

       (To learn about writing CSV, see CSV output.)

       For   best  error  messages  when  reading  CSV/TSV/SSV  files,  make  sure  they  have  a
       corresponding .csv, .tsv or .ssv file extension or use a hledger  file  prefix  (see  File
       Extension below).

       Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding rules file.
       This  contains  rules  describing  the  CSV  data (header line, fields layout, date format
       etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, and how to  categorise  transactions
       based on description or other attributes.

       By  default  hledger  looks  for a rules file named like the CSV file with an extra .rules
       extension, in the same directory.  Eg when asked to read foo/FILE.csv, hledger  looks  for
       foo/FILE.csv.rules.   You can specify a different rules file with the --rules-file option.
       If no rules file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which you'll  need  to
       adjust.

       At  minimum,  the  rules  file must identify the date and amount fields, and often it also
       specifies the date format and how many header lines there are.  Here's a simple  CSV  file
       and a rules file for it:

              Date, Description, Id, Amount
              12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23

              # basic.csv.rules
              skip         1
              fields       date, description, , amount
              date-format  %d/%m/%Y

              $ hledger print -f basic.csv
              2019-11-12 Foo
                  expenses:unknown           10.23
                  income:unknown            -10.23

       There's  an  introductory  Importing  CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, and more CSV rules
       examples         below,         and         a         larger         collection         at
       https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv.

   CSV rules cheatsheet
       The  following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order.  (Blank lines and
       lines beginning with # or ; or * are ignored.)

       source                     optionally declare which  file  to  read  data
                                  from
       separator                  declare   the   field  separator,  instead  of
                                  relying on file extension
       skip                       skip one or more header lines at start of file
       date-format                declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times
       timezone                   declare the time zone of ambiguous  CSV  date-
                                  times
       newest-first               improve  txn  order  when:  there are multiple
                                  records, newest first, all with the same date
       intra-day-reversed         improve txn order when: same-day txns  are  in
                                  opposite order to the overall file
       decimal-mark               declare  the decimal mark used in CSV amounts,
                                  when ambiguous
       fields list                name  CSV  fields  for  easy  reference,   and
                                  optionally  assign  their  values  to  hledger
                                  fields
       Field assignment           assign a CSV value or interpolated text  value
                                  to a hledger field
       if block                   conditionally assign values to hledger fields,
                                  or skip a record or end (skip rest of file)
       if table                   conditionally assign values to hledger fields,
                                  using compact syntax
       balance-type               select      which      type     of     balance
                                  assertions/assignments to generate
       include                    inline another CSV rules file

       Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are evaluated.

   source
       If you tell hledger to read a csv file  with  -f  foo.csv,  it  will  look  for  rules  in
       foo.csv.rules.   Or, you can tell it to read the rules file, with -f foo.csv.rules, and it
       will look for data in foo.csv (since 1.30).

       These are mostly equivalent, but the second method provides some extra features.  For one,
       the data file can be missing, without causing an error; it is just considered empty.  And,
       you can specify a different data file by adding a "source" rule:

              source ./Checking1.csv

       If you specify just a file name with no path, hledger will look for it  in  your  system's
       downloads directory (~/Downloads, currently):

              source Checking1.csv

       And  if you specify a glob pattern, hledger will read the most recent of the matched files
       (useful with repeated downloads):

              source Checking1*.csv

       See also "Working with CSV > Reading files specified by rule".

   separator
       You can use the separator rule to read  other  kinds  of  character-separated  data.   The
       argument  is any single separator character, or the words tab or space (case insensitive).
       Eg, for comma-separated values (CSV):

              separator ,

       or for semicolon-separated values (SSV):

              separator ;

       or for tab-separated values (TSV):

              separator TAB

       If the input file has a .csv, .ssv or .tsv file extension (or a csv:, ssv:, tsv:  prefix),
       the appropriate separator will be inferred automatically, and you won't need this rule.

   skip
              skip N

       The  word skip followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells hledger to ignore this
       many non-empty lines at the start of the input data.  You'll need this whenever  your  CSV
       data contains header lines.  Note, empty and blank lines are skipped automatically, so you
       don't need to count those.

       skip has a second meaning: it can be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip  one
       or  more records whenever the condition is true.  Records skipped in this way are ignored,
       except they are still required to be valid CSV.

   date-format
              date-format DATEFMT

       This is a helper for the date (and date2) fields.  If your CSV  dates  are  not  formatted
       like  YYYY-MM-DD,  YYYY/MM/DD  or  YYYY.MM.DD,  you'll  need  to  add  a  date-format rule
       describing   them    with    a    strptime-style    date    parsing    pattern    -    see
       https://hackage.haskell.org/package/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime.      The
       pattern must parse the CSV date value completely.  Some examples:

              # MM/DD/YY
              date-format %m/%d/%y

              # D/M/YYYY
              # The - makes leading zeros optional.
              date-format %-d/%-m/%Y

              # YYYY-Mmm-DD
              date-format %Y-%h-%d

              # M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk
              # Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used.
              date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk

   timezone
              timezone TIMEZONE

       When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone other than  yours,  but
       containing  no  explicit time zone information, you can use this rule to declare the CSV's
       native time zone, which helps prevent off-by-one dates.

       When the CSV date-times do contain time  zone  information,  you  don't  need  this  rule;
       instead, use %Z in date-format (or %z, %EZ, %Ez; see the formatTime link above).

       In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware conversion, localising the CSV
       date-times to your current system time zone.  If you prefer to localise to some other time
       zone,  eg for reproducibility, you can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with the
       TZ environment variable, eg:

              $ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv  # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv

       timezone currently does not understand timezone names, except "UTC", "GMT", "EST",  "EDT",
       "CST",  "CDT",  "MST",  "MDT",  "PST", or "PDT".  For others, use numeric format: +HHMM or
       -HHMM.

   newest-first
       hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be  ordered  chronologically,
       including  intra-day  transactions.   Usually  it  can auto-detect how the CSV records are
       ordered.  But if it encounters CSV where all records are on the same date, it assumes that
       the  records  are  oldest  first.  If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first,
       like:

              2022-10-01, txn 3...
              2022-10-01, txn 2...
              2022-10-01, txn 1...

       you can add the newest-first rule to help hledger generate  the  transactions  in  correct
       order.

              # same-day CSV records are newest first
              newest-first

   intra-day-reversed
       CSV  records  for  each  day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to the overall date
       order.  Eg, here dates are newest first, but the transactions  on  each  date  are  oldest
       first:

              2022-10-02, txn 3...
              2022-10-02, txn 4...
              2022-10-01, txn 1...
              2022-10-01, txn 2...

       In this situation, add the intra-day-reversed rule, and hledger will compensate, improving
       the order of transactions.

              # transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order
              intra-day-reversed

   decimal-mark
              decimal-mark .

       or:

              decimal-mark ,

       hledger automatically accepts either period or  comma  as  a  decimal  mark  when  parsing
       numbers  (cf  Amounts).  However if any numbers in the CSV contain digit group marks, such
       as thousand-separating commas, you should declare the decimal mark  explicitly  with  this
       rule, to avoid misparsed numbers.

   fields list
              fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ...

       A  fields  list (the word fields followed by comma-separated field names) is optional, but
       convenient.  It does two things:

       1. It names the CSV field in each column.  This can be convenient if you  are  referencing
          them in other rules, so you can say %SomeField instead of remembering %13.

       2. Whenever  you  use one of the special hledger field names (described below), it assigns
          the CSV value in this position to that hledger field.  This  is  the  quickest  way  to
          populate hledger's fields and build a transaction.

       Here's  an  example  that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the transaction's date,
       description and amount; name the last two fields  for  later  reference;  and  ignore  the
       others":

              fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield

       In  a  fields  list,  the  separator  is  always  comma; it is unrelated to the CSV file's
       separator.  Also:

       • There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma).

       • Field names may not contain spaces.  Spaces before/after field names are optional.

       • Field names may contain _ (underscore) or - (hyphen).

       • Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty name.

       If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for  your  field  names,
       suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces replaced by underscores).

       Sometimes  you  may  want  to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning to a hledger field
       with the same name.  Eg you could  call  the  CSV's  "balance"  field  balance_  to  avoid
       directly setting hledger's balance field (and generating a balance assertion).

   Field assignment
              HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE

       Field  assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to hledger fields.  They
       can be used instead of or in addition to a fields list (see above).

       To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of  the  standard  hledger
       field/pseudo-field  names,  defined  below), a space, followed by a text value on the same
       line.  This text value may interpolate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in
       the CSV record (%N), or by the name they were given in the fields list (%CSVFIELD).

       Some examples:

              # set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended
              amount %4 USD

              # combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags
              comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1

       Tips:

       • Interpolation  strips  outer  whitespace  (so  a  CSV  value  like  " 1 " becomes 1 when
         interpolated) (#1051).

       • Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you  can't  interpolate  a  hledger  field.
         (See Referencing other fields below).

   Field names
       Note  the  two  kinds  of  field  names mentioned here, and used only in hledger CSV rules
       files:

       1. CSV field names (CSVFIELD in these docs): you can optionally name the CSV  columns  for
          easy  reference (since hledger doesn't yet automatically recognise column headings in a
          CSV file), by writing arbitrary names in a fields list, eg:

                  fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar

       2. Special hledger field names (HLEDGERFIELD in these docs): you must set at least some of
          these  to  generate  the  hledger transaction from a CSV record, by writing them as the
          left hand side of a field assignment, eg:

                  date        %When
                  code        %Some_Id
                  description %What
                  comment     %Foo %Bar
                  amount1     $ %Total

           or directly in a fields list:

                  fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar
                  currency $
                  comment  %Foo %Bar

       Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what happens when  you  assign
       values to them:

   date field
       Assigning to date sets the transaction date.

   date2 field
       date2 sets the transaction's secondary date, if any.

   status field
       status sets the transaction's status, if any.

   code field
       code sets the transaction's code, if any.

   description field
       description sets the transaction's description, if any.

   comment field
       comment sets the transaction's comment, if any.

       commentN, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment.

       You  can assign multi-line comments by writing literal \n in the code.  A comment starting
       with \n will begin on a new line.

       Comments can contain tags, as usual.

   account field
       Assigning to accountN, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of the Nth  posting,  and
       causes that posting to be generated.

       Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set account1 and account2.  Typically
       account1 is associated with the CSV file, and is set once  with  a  top-level  assignment,
       while account2 is set based on each transaction's description, in conditional rules.

       If  a  posting's  account  name is left unset but its amount is set (see below), a default
       account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" or "income:unknown").

   amount field
       Amount setting can get a bit complex.   Assigning  to  amount  is  sufficient  for  simple
       transactions, but there are four field name variants you can use for different situations:

       • amountN sets a specific posting's amount from one CSV field or arbitrary value.
       Assigning  to amountN sets the amount of the Nth posting - and also causes that posting to
       be generated.  N is most often 1 or 2 but can  go  up  to  99,  potentially  generating  a
       99-posting  transaction.   (Posting  numbers  don't have to be consecutive; higher posting
       numbers can sometimes be useful with conditional rules, to ensure a  certain  ordering  of
       postings.)

       • amountN-in/-out sets a specific posting's amount from two CSV fields.
       When  the amount is provided as two CSV fields - "Debit"/"Credit", "Deposit"/"Withdrawal",
       "Money In"/"Money Out" or similar - assign those  fields  to  amountN-in  and  amountN-out
       respectively (or possibly the other way round, depending on signs).  This will set the Nth
       posting's amount to whichever of the two CSV field values is non-zero.  Some notes:

         • Don't mix amountN and amountN-in/-out.  When  you  have  one  CSV  amount  field,  use
           amountN.  When you have two CSV amount fields, use amountN-in/amountN-out.

         • amountN-in  and  amountN-out  are  always used together, as a pair.  Assign to both of
           them.

         • They do not generate two separate postings; rather, they generate  the  Nth  posting's
           single amount, from the value found in one or other of the two CSV fields.

         • In  each  record,  at least one of the two CSV fields must contain a zero amount or be
           empty.

         • hledger assumes the two CSV fields contain unsigned numbers, and it will automatically
           negate the -out amount.

         • This  variant  can  be  convenient,  but  it  doesn't  handle  every  two-amount-field
           situation; if you need more flexibility, use an if rule (see "Setting amounts" below).

       The other two variants are older and considered legacy syntax, but can still be convenient
       sometimes:

       • amount sets posting 1 and 2's amounts from one CSV field or value.
       Assigning to amount, with no posting number,

         • sets posting 1's amount (like amount1)

         • sets  posting  2's amount to the same amount but with opposite sign; and also converts
           it to cost if it has a cost price

         • can be overridden by amount1 and/or amount2 assignments.  (This helps with incremental
           migration of old rules files to the newer syntax.)

       • amount-in/-out sets posting 1 and 2's amounts from two CSV fields.
       Assigning  amount-in  and  amount-out,  with  no  posting numbers, to two CSV fields reads
       whichever of the two values is non-zero as the amount, and then sets the first two posting
       amounts as above.

       We  recommend  using  only  one  of these variants within a rules file, rather than mixing
       them.  And remember that a fields list can also do assignments, so eg naming a  CSV  field
       "amount"  counts  as  an  assignment  to amount; if you don't want that, call it something
       else, like "amount_".

       In addition to this section, please see also the tips beginning at  "Working  with  CSV  >
       Setting amounts" below.

   currency field
       currency  sets  a  currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' amounts.  You can use
       this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency symbol, eg if it is in a separate column.

       currencyN prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's amount.

   balance field
       balanceN sets a balance assertion amount (or if  the  posting  amount  is  left  empty,  a
       balance assignment) on posting N.

       balance is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is equivalent to balance1.

       You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the balance-type rule (see below).

       See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency.

   if block
       Rules  can  be  applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV data.  This allows
       flexibility; in particular, it is  how  you  can  categorise  transactions,  selecting  an
       appropriate  account name based on their description (for example).  There are two ways to
       write conditional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", described below.

       An if block is the word if and one or  more  "matcher"  expressions  (can  be  a  word  or
       phrase),  one  per line, starting either on the same or next line; followed by one or more
       indented rules.  Eg,

              if MATCHER
               RULE

       or

              if
              MATCHER
              MATCHER
              MATCHER
               RULE
               RULE

       If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules  will  be  applied.   They  are
       usually  field  assignments, but the following special rules may also be used within an if
       block:

       • skip - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction from it)

       • end - skips the rest of the current CSV file.

       Some examples:

              # if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries"
              if groceries
               account2 expenses:groceries

              # if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown
              if
              monthly service fee
              atm transaction fee
              banking thru software
               account2 expenses:business:banking
               comment  XXX deductible ? check it

              # if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file
              if ,,,,
               end

   Matchers
       There are two kinds:

       1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular expression  (REGEX),
          which hledger will try to match case-insensitively anywhere within the CSV record.
       Eg: whole foods

       2. A  field  matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name (%CSVFIELD REGEX).
          hledger will try to match these just within the named CSV field.
       Eg: %date 2023

       The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended regular expression,  that
       also  supports  GNU  word  boundaries  (\b,  \B,  \<,  \>), and nothing else.  If you have
       trouble,     see      "Regular      expressions"      in      the      hledger      manual
       (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expressions).

       With  record  matchers, it's important to know that the record matched is not the original
       CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be  converted  to  commas,  and  enclosing
       double quotes (but not enclosing whitespace) are removed.  So for example, when reading an
       SSV file, if the original record was:

              2023-01-01; "Acme, Inc.";  1,000

       the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text:

              2023-01-01,Acme, Inc.,  1,000

       When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows:

       • By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match)

       • When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (&) it will be AND'ed with the previous  matcher
         (both of them must match).

       There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher.

   if table
       "if  tables"  are  an  alternative  to if blocks; they can express many matchers and field
       assignments in a more compact tabular format, like this:

              if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,...
              MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,...
              MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,...
              MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,...
              <empty line>

       The first character after if is taken to be the separator for the rest of the  table.   It
       should  be  a non-alphanumeric character like , or | that does not appear anywhere else in
       the table.  (Note: it is unrelated to the CSV file's separator.)  Whitespace can  be  used
       in the matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently.  The table must be
       terminated by an empty line (or end of file).  Each line must contain the same  number  of
       separators; empty values are allowed.

       The  above  means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher succeeds, assign all of the
       values on that line to the corresponding hledger fields; later lines can overrider earlier
       ones.  It is equivalent to this sequence of if blocks:

              if MATCHERA
                HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1
                HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2
                ...

              if MATCHERB
                HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1
                HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2
                ...

              if MATCHERC
                HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1
                HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2
                ...

       Example:

              if,account2,comment
              atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it
              %description groceries,expenses:groceries,
              2023/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out

   balance-type
       Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple = type by default,
       which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding assertion.  You may find the subaccount-
       including  variants  more  useful,  eg  if  you  have  created some virtual subaccounts of
       checking to help with budgeting.  You can select a different type of  assertion  with  the
       balance-type rule:

              # balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts
              balance-type ==*

       Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference:

              =    single commodity, exclude subaccounts
              =*   single commodity, include subaccounts
              ==   multi commodity,  exclude subaccounts
              ==*  multi commodity,  include subaccounts

   include
              include RULESFILE

       This  includes  the  contents  of  another  CSV rules file at this point.  RULESFILE is an
       absolute file path or a path relative to the current file's directory.  This can be useful
       for sharing common rules between several rules files, eg:

              # someaccount.csv.rules

              ## someaccount-specific rules
              fields   date,description,amount
              account1 assets:someaccount
              account2 expenses:misc

              ## common rules
              include categorisation.rules

   Working with CSV
       Some tips:

   Rapid feedback
       It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting CSV rules.  Here's a
       good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject:

              $ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC'

       A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions of interest.   "bash
       -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can echo a separator each time the command re-
       runs, making it easier to read the output.

   Valid CSV
       Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180,  and  equivalent  SSV
       and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or tab as separators).  This means, eg:

       • Values  may  be  enclosed  in  double quotes, or not.  Enclosing in single quotes is not
         allowed.  (Eg 'A','B' is rejected.)

       • When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the quotes  are  not  allowed.
         (Eg "A", "B" is rejected.)

       • When  values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double quotes.  (Eg A"A, B
         is rejected.)

       If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to transform it before reading
       with hledger.  Try using sed, or a more permissive CSV parser like python's csv lib.

   File Extension
       To  help  hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error messages (and choose
       the right field separator character by default), it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are  named
       with a .csv, .ssv or .tsv filename extension.  (More about this at Data formats.)

       When  reading  files  with  the  "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV reader (and the
       default field separator) by prefixing the file path with csv:, ssv: or tsv:: Eg:

              $ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print

       You can also override the default field separator with a separator rule if needed.

   Reading CSV from standard input
       You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, since hledger assumes
       journal format by default.  Eg:

              $ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print

   Reading multiple CSV files
       If you use multiple -f options to read multiple CSV files at once, hledger will look for a
       correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV file.   But  if  you  use  the  --rules-file
       option, that rules file will be used for all the CSV files.

   Reading files specified by rule
       Instead  of specifying a CSV file in the command line, you can specify a rules file, as in
       hledger -f foo.csv.rules CMD.  By default this will read data from  foo.csv  in  the  same
       directory, but you can add a source rule to specify a different data file, perhaps located
       in your web browser's download directory.

       This feature was added in hledger 1.30, so you won't see it in most  CSV  rules  examples.
       But  it  helps  remove  some  of  the  busywork  of  managing CSV downloads.  Most of your
       financial institutions's default CSV filenames are different and can be  recognised  by  a
       glob pattern.  So you can put a rule like source Checking1*.csv in foo-checking.csv.rules,
       and then periodically follow a workflow like:

       1. Download CSV from Foo's website, using your browser's defaults

       2. Run hledger import foo-checking.csv.rules to import any new transactions

       After import, you can: discard the CSV, or leave it where it is for a while,  or  move  it
       into  your  archives,  as you prefer.  If you do nothing, next time your browser will save
       something like Checking1-2.csv, and hledger will use that because of the * wild  card  and
       because it is the most recent.

   Valid transactions
       After  reading  a  CSV  file,  hledger  post-processes and validates the generated journal
       entries as it would for a journal file - balancing them, applying balance assignments, and
       canonicalising amount styles.  Any errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way,
       displaying the problem entry.

       There is one exception: balance assertions, if  you  have  generated  them,  will  not  be
       checked,  since  normally  these  will  work  only  when  the CSV data is part of the main
       journal.  If you do need to check balance assertions generated from CSV right  away,  pipe
       into another hledger:

              $ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print

   Deduplicating, importing
       When  you  download  a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank transactions, the
       new file may overlap with the old one, containing some of the same records.

       The import command will (a) detect  the  new  transactions,  and  (b)  append  just  those
       transactions  to  your  main journal.  It is idempotent, so you don't have to remember how
       many times you ran it or with which version of the CSV.   (It  keeps  state  in  a  hidden
       .latest.FILE.csv file.)  This is the easiest way to import CSV data.  Eg:

              # download the latest CSV files, then run this command.
              # Note, no -f flags needed here.
              $ hledger import *.csv [--dry]

       This  method  works for most CSV files.  (Where records have a stable chronological order,
       and new records appear only at the new end.)

       A number  of  other  tools  and  workflows,  hledger-specific  and  otherwise,  exist  for
       converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing CSV data.  See:

       • https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows

       • https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion

   Setting amounts
       Continuing  from amount field above, here are more tips on handling various amount-setting
       situations:

       1. If the amount is in a single CSV field:
           a. If its sign indicates direction of flow:
           Assign it to amountN, to set the Nth posting's amount.  N is usually 1 or 2 but can go
           up to 99.

           b. If another field indicates direction of flow:
           Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate amount sign.  Eg:

                  # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit":
                  amount1  -%Amount
                  if %Type deposit
                    amount1  %Amount

       2. If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit):
           a. If both fields are unsigned:
           Assign  the  fields  to  amountN-in  and amountN-out.  This sets posting N's amount to
           whichever of these has a non-zero value.  If it's the -out value, the amount  will  be
           negated.

           b. If either field is signed:
           Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed.  Eg below, the -out value already
           has a minus sign so we undo hledger's automatic negating by negating  once  more  (but
           only if the field is non-empty, so that we don't leave a minus sign by itself):

                  fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out
                  if %amount1-out [1-9]
                   amount1-out -%amount1-out

           c. If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be empty):
           The  -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is non-zero/non-empty.  Some value
           pairs can be ambiguous, such as 1 and none.  For such cases, use conditional rules  to
           help select the amount.  Eg, to handle the above you could select the value containing
           non-zero digits:

                  fields date, description, in, out
                  if %in [1-9]
                   amount1 %in
                  if %out [1-9]
                   amount1 %out

       3. If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost:
       Use the unnumbered amount (or amount-in and amount-out) syntax.

       4. If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts:
       Assign to balanceN, to set a balance assignment on the Nth posting, causing the  posting's
       amount  to be calculated automatically.  balance with no number is equivalent to balance1.
       In this situation hledger is more likely to guess the wrong default account name,  so  you
       may need to set that explicitly.

   Amount signs
       There  is  some  special  handling  making it easier to parse and to reverse amount signs.
       (This only works for whole amounts, not for cost amounts such as COST in  amount1   AMT  @
       COST):

       • If an amount value begins with a plus sign:
       that will be removed: +AMT becomes AMT

       • If an amount value is parenthesised:
       it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: (AMT) becomes -AMT

       • If  an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of parentheses, or a minus sign and
         parentheses):
       they cancel out and will be removed: --AMT or -(AMT) becomes AMT

       • If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of parentheses):
       that is removed, making it an empty value.  "+" or "-" or "()" becomes "".

       It's not possible (without preprocessing the CSV) to set an amount to its absolute  value,
       ie discard its sign.

   Setting currency/commodity
       If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount field(s):

              2023-01-01,foo,$123.00

       you  don't  have  to  do anything special for the commodity symbol, it will be assigned as
       part of the amount.  Eg:

              fields date,description,amount

              2023-01-01 foo
                  expenses:unknown         $123.00
                  income:unknown          $-123.00

       If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field:

              2023-01-01,foo,USD,123.00

       You can assign that to  the  currency  pseudo-field,  which  has  the  special  effect  of
       prepending  itself  to  every  amount  in the transaction (on the left, with no separating
       space):

              fields date,description,currency,amount

              2023-01-01 foo
                  expenses:unknown       USD123.00
                  income:unknown        USD-123.00

       Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself,  with  more  control.
       Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by a space:

              fields date,description,cur,amt
              amount %amt %cur

              2023-01-01 foo
                  expenses:unknown        123.00 USD
                  income:unknown         -123.00 USD

       Note  we  used  a temporary field name (cur) that is not currency - that would trigger the
       prepending effect, which we don't want here.

   Amount decimal places
       Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like amount1  influence
       commodity display styles, such as the number of decimal places displayed in reports.

       The  original  amounts  as written in the CSV file do not affect display style (because we
       don't yet reliably know their commodity).

   Referencing other fields
       In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not  hledger  fields.   In  the
       example  below,  there's  both a CSV field and a hledger field named amount1, but %amount1
       always means the CSV field, not the hledger field:

              # Name the third CSV field "amount1"
              fields date,description,amount1

              # Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD
              amount1 %amount1 USD

              # Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above)
              comment %amount1

       Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a literal "amount1":

              fields date,description,csvamount
              amount1 %csvamount USD
              # Can't interpolate amount1 here
              comment %amount1

       When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field,  only  the  last  one
       takes  effect.   Here,  comment's  value will be be B, or C if "something" is matched, but
       never A:

              comment A
              comment B
              if something
               comment C

   How CSV rules are evaluated
       Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need to).  First,

       • include - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth first.  (At  each  include
         point  the  file  is  inlined  and  scanned  for  further  includes, recursively, before
         proceeding.)

       Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom.  If a rule is  repeated,  the  last  one
       wins:

       • skip (at top level)

       • date-format

       • newest-first

       • fields - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial assignments to hledger fields

       Then for each CSV record in turn:

       • test  all if blocks.  If any of them contain a end rule, skip all remaining CSV records.
         Otherwise if any of them contain a skip rule, skip that many CSV records.  If there  are
         multiple matched skip rules, the first one wins.

       • collect  all  field  assignments  at top level and in matched if blocks.  When there are
         multiple assignments for a field, keep only the last one.

       • compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was  assigned  to  it  (and
         interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a default

       • generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values.

       This  is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger can use to parse input
       files.  When all files have been read successfully, the transactions are passed  as  input
       to whichever hledger command the user specified.

   Well factored rules
       Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules files:

       • Extracting  common  rules usable with multiple CSV files into a common.rules, and adding
         include common.rules to each CSV's rules file.

       • Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the frequently used parts.

   CSV rules examples
   Bank of Ireland
       Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance field, which we  can
       use to add balance assertions, which is not necessary but provides extra error checking:

              Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance
              07/12/2012,LODGMENT       529898,,10.0,131.21
              07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126

              # bankofireland-checking.csv.rules

              # skip the header line
              skip

              # name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields
              fields  date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance

              # We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance"
              # above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because:
              #
              # - the CSV balance differs from the true balance,
              #   by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience
              #
              # - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering,
              #   eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day

              # date is in UK/Ireland format
              date-format  %d/%m/%Y

              # set the currency
              currency  EUR

              # set the base account for all txns
              account1  assets:bank:boi:checking

              $ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print
              2012-12-07 LODGMENT       529898
                  assets:bank:boi:checking         EUR10.0 = EUR131.2
                  income:unknown                  EUR-10.0

              2012-12-07 PAYMENT
                  assets:bank:boi:checking         EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0
                  expenses:unknown                  EUR5.0

       The  balance  assertions  don't  raise an error above, because we're reading directly from
       CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are imported into a journal file.

   Coinbase
       A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase.  The  spot  price  is  recorded  using  cost
       notation.  The legacy amount field name conveniently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to
       the total cost.

              # Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes
              # 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account"

              # coinbase.csv.rules
              skip         1
              fields       Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes
              date         %Timestamp
              date-format  %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z
              description  %Notes
              account1     assets:coinbase:cc
              amount       %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency

              $ hledger print -f coinbase.csv
              2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account
                  assets:coinbase:cc    100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP
                  income:unknown                 -74.000000 GBP

   Amazon
       Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to generate a third  posting
       if  there's  a fee.  (In practice you'd probably get this data from your bank instead, but
       it's an example.)

              "Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID"
              "Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL"
              "Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL"

              # amazon-orders.csv.rules

              # skip one header line
              skip 1

              # name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code.
              # Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion.
              fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code

              # how to parse the date
              date-format %b %-d, %Y

              # combine two fields to make the description
              description %toorfrom %name

              # save the status as a tag
              comment     status:%amzstatus

              # set the base account for all transactions
              account1    assets:amazon
              # leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s).
              # I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember

              # set a generic account2
              account2    expenses:misc
              amount2     %amzamount
              # and maybe refine it further:
              #include categorisation.rules

              # add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero.
              if %fees [1-9]
               account3    expenses:fees
               amount3     %fees

              $ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print
              2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo.  ; status:Completed
                  assets:amazon
                  expenses:misc          $20.00

              2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc.  ; status:Completed
                  assets:amazon
                  expenses:misc          $25.00
                  expenses:fees           $1.00

   Paypal
       Here's a real-world rules file for (customised)  Paypal  CSV,  with  some  Paypal-specific
       rules, and a second rules file included:

              "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note"
              "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99",""
              "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00",""
              "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00",""
              "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00",""
              "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00",""
              "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00",""
              "10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41",""

              # paypal-custom.csv.rules

              # Tips:
              # Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download
              # Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting"
              # Paypal's default fields in 2018 were:
              # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact"
              # This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields":
              # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note"

              fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note

              skip  1

              date-format  %-m/%-d/%Y

              # ignore some paypal events
              if
              In Progress
              Temporary Hold
              Update to
               skip

              # add more fields to the description
              description %description_ %itemtitle

              # save some other fields as tags
              comment  itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_

              # convert to short currency symbols
              if %currency USD
               currency $
              if %currency EUR
               currency E
              if %currency GBP
               currency P

              # generate postings

              # the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account
              # (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields)
              account1 assets:online:paypal
              amount1  %netamount

              # the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party
              # (account2 is set below)
              amount2  -%grossamount

              # if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal.
              if %feeamount [1-9]
               account3 expenses:banking:paypal
               amount3  -%feeamount
               comment3 business:

              # choose an account for the second posting

              # override the default account names:
              # if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit)
              if %grossamount ^[^-]
               account2 income:unknown
              # if negative, it's an expense (a credit)
              if %grossamount ^-
               account2 expenses:unknown

              # apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks
              include common.rules

              # apply some overrides specific to this csv

              # Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending,
              # which can be disregarded in this case.
              if
              Bank Account
              Bank Deposit to PP Account
               description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle
               account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking
               account1 assets:online:paypal

              # Currency conversions
              if Currency Conversion
               account2 equity:currency conversion

              # common.rules

              if
              darcs
              noble benefactor
               account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub
               comment2 business:

              if
              Calm Radio
               account2 expenses:online:apps

              if
              electronic frontier foundation
              Patreon
              wikimedia
              Advent of Code
               account2 expenses:dues

              if Google
               account2 expenses:online:apps
               description google | music

              $ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv  print
              2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month  ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal          $-6.99 = $-6.99
                  expenses:online:apps           $6.99

              2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E  ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending
                  assets:online:paypal               $6.99 = $0.00
                  assets:bank:wf:pchecking          $-6.99

              2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership  ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal          $-7.00 = $-7.00
                  expenses:dues                  $7.00

              2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership  ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending
                  assets:online:paypal               $7.00 = $0.00
                  assets:bank:wf:pchecking          $-7.00

              2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation  ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal             $-2.00 = $-2.00
                  expenses:dues                     $2.00
                  expenses:banking:paypal      ; business:

              2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M  ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending
                  assets:online:paypal               $2.00 = $0.00
                  assets:bank:wf:pchecking          $-2.00

              2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems  ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed
                  assets:online:paypal                       $9.41 = $9.41
                  revenues:foss donations:darcshub         $-10.00  ; business:
                  expenses:banking:paypal                    $0.59  ; business:

Timeclock

       The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger.

       hledger  can  read time logs in timeclock format.  As with Ledger, these are (a subset of)
       timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and clock-out entries as in the example  below.
       The  date  is a simple date.  The time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ].  Seconds and timezone
       are optional.  The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored (currently the
       time  is always interpreted as a local time).  Lines beginning with # or ; or *, and blank
       lines, are ignored.

              i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some account  optional description after 2 spaces ; optional comment, tags:
              o 2015/03/30 09:20:00
              i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another:account
              o 2015/04/01 02:00:34

       hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting some number of  hours
       to  an  account.   Or  if  the  session  spans more than one day, it is split into several
       transactions, one for each day.  For the above time log,  hledger  print  generates  these
       journal entries:

              $ hledger -f t.timeclock print
              2015-03-30 * optional description after 2 spaces   ; optional comment, tags:
                  (some account)           0.33h

              2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59
                  (another:account)           1.64h

              2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00
                  (another:account)           2.01h

       Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try:

              $ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance                               # current time balances
              $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3                    # sessions in march 2009
              $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty  # time summary by week

       To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could:

       • use  emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended timeclock-x.el and perhaps the
         extras in ledgerutils.el

       • at the command line, use these bash aliases: shell     alias ti="echo i `date '+%Y-%m-%d
         %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG"     alias to="echo o `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"

       • or  use  the  old  ti  and  to  scripts  in  the ledger 2.x repository.  These rely on a
         "timeclock" executable which I think is just the ledger 2 executable renamed.

Timedot

       timedot format is hledger's human-friendly time logging  format.   Compared  to  timeclock
       format, it is

       • convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging

       • readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent.

       A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look like this:

              2023-05-01
              hom:errands          .... ....  ; two hours
              fos:hledger:timedot  ..         ; half an hour
              per:admin:finance

       hledger  reads  this  as a transaction on this day with three (unbalanced) postings, where
       each dot represents "0.25".  No commodity is assumed, but  normally  we  interpret  it  as
       hours,  with  each dot representing a quarter-hour.  It's convenient, though not required,
       to group the dots in fours for easy reading.

              $ hledger -f a.timedot print   # .timedot file extension (or timedot: prefix) is required
              2023-05-01 *
                  (hom:errands)                    2.00  ; two hours
                  (fos:hledger:timedot)            0.50  ; half an hour
                  (per:admin:finance)                 0

       A transaction begins with a non-indented simple date (Y-M-D, Y/M/D,  or  Y.M.D).   It  can
       optionally be preceded by one or more stars and a space, for Emacs org mode compatibility.
       It can optionally be followed on the same line by  a  transaction  description,  and/or  a
       transaction comment following a semicolon.

       After the date line are zero or more time postings, consisting of:

       • an  account  name  - any hledger-style account name, optionally hierarchical, optionally
         indented.

       • two or more spaces - a field separator, required if there is an amount  (as  in  journal
         format).

       • an  optional  timedot amount - dots representing quarter hours, or a number representing
         hours, optionally with a unit suffix.

       • an optional posting comment following a semicolon.

       Timedot amounts can be:

       • dots: zero or more period characters (.), each representing 0.25.   Spaces  are  ignored
         and can be used for grouping.  Eg: .... ..

       • or a number.  Eg: 1.5

       • or  a  number  immediately followed by a unit symbol s, m, h, d, w, mo, or y.  These are
         interpreted as seconds, minutes, hours, days weeks, months or years,  and  converted  to
         hours, assuming:
       60s = 1m, 60m = 1h, 24h = 1d, 7d = 1w, 30d = 1mo, 365d = 1y.  Eg 90m is parsed as 1.5.

       There  is  some  added  flexibility to help with keeping time log data in the same file as
       your notes, todo lists, etc.:

       • Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; are ignored.

       • Before the first date line, lines beginning with * are ignored.

       • From the first date line onward, one or more *'s followed by a  space  at  beginning  of
         lines  (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs Org mode) is ignored.  This means the time
         log can be kept under an Org headline, and date lines or time transaction lines  can  be
         Org headlines.

       • Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as postings with zero amount.
         Note hledger's register reports hide these by default (add -E to see them).

       More examples:

              # on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc.
              2016/2/1
              inc:client1   .... .... .... .... .... ....
              fos:haskell   .... ..
              biz:research  .

              2016/2/2
              inc:client1   .... ....
              biz:research  .

              2016/2/3
              inc:client1   4
              fos:hledger   3
              biz:research  1

              * Time log
              ** 2023-01-01
              *** adm:time  .
              *** adm:finance  .

              * 2023 Work Diary
              ** Q1
              *** 2023-02-29
              **** DONE
              0700 yoga
              **** UNPLANNED
              **** BEGUN
              hom:chores
               cleaning  ...
               water plants
                outdoor - one full watering can
                indoor - light watering
              **** TODO
              adm:planning: trip
              *** LATER

       Reporting:

              $ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2
              2016-02-02 *
                  (inc:client1)          2.00

              2016-02-02 *
                  (biz:research)          0.25

              $ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree
              Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03:

                          ||  2016-02-01d  2016-02-02d  2016-02-03d
              ============++========================================
               biz        ||         0.25         0.25         1.00
                 research ||         0.25         0.25         1.00
               fos        ||         1.50            0         3.00
                 haskell  ||         1.50            0            0
                 hledger  ||            0            0         3.00
               inc        ||         6.00         2.00         4.00
                 client1  ||         6.00         2.00         4.00
              ------------++----------------------------------------
                          ||         7.75         2.25         8.00

       Using period instead of colon as account name separator:

              2016/2/4
              fos.hledger.timedot  4
              fos.ledger           ..

              $ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree
                              4.50  fos
                              4.00    hledger:timedot
                              0.50    ledger
              --------------------
                              4.50

       A sample.timedot file.

PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS

Time periods

   Report start & end date
       By default, most hledger reports will show the  full  span  of  time  represented  by  the
       journal.   The report start date will be the earliest transaction or posting date, and the
       report end date will be the latest transaction, posting, or market price date.

       Often you will want to see a shorter time span,  such  as  the  current  month.   You  can
       specify  a  start and/or end date using -b/--begin, -e/--end, -p/--period or a date: query
       (described below).  All of these accept the smart date syntax (below).

       Some notes:

       • End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date after the  last  day
         you want to see in the report.

       • As  noted  in  reporting options: among start/end dates specified with options, the last
         (i.e.  right-most) option takes precedence.

       • The effective report start and end dates are the intersection  of  the  start/end  dates
         from  options  and  that from date: queries.  That is, date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to
         2030' yields January 2019, the smallest common time span.

       • In some cases a report  interval  will  adjust  start/end  dates  to  fall  on  interval
         boundaries (see below).

       Examples:

       -b 2016/3/17       begin on St. Patrick’s day 2016
       -e 12/1            end  at  the  start  of  december  1st of the current year
                          (11/30 will be the last date included)
       -b thismonth       all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month
       -p thismonth       all transactions in the current month
       date:2016/3/17..   the  above  written  as  queries  instead  (.. can also be
                          replaced with -)
       date:..12/1
       date:thismonth..
       date:thismonth

   Smart dates
       hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added convenience.  Smart dates
       optionally  can be relative to today's date, be written with english words, and have less-
       significant parts omitted (missing parts are inferred as 1).  Some examples:

       2004/10/1,   2004-01-01,           exact  date, several separators allowed.  Year
       2004.9.1                           is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31
       2004                               start of year
       2004/10                            start of month
       10/1                               month and day in current year
       21                                 day in current month
       october, oct                       start of month in current year
       yesterday,        today,           -1, 0, 1 days from today
       tomorrow
       last/this/next                     -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period
       day/week/month/quarter/year
       in                        n        n periods from the current period
       days/weeks/months/quarters/years
       n                                  n periods from the current period
       days/weeks/months/quarters/years
       ahead
       n                                  -n periods from the current period
       days/weeks/months/quarters/years
       ago
       20181201                           8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day
       201812                             6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month

       Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give surprising results:

       201813        6  digits  with  an  invalid  month  is  parsed as start of
                     6-digit year
       20181301      8 digits with an  invalid  month  is  parsed  as  start  of
                     8-digit year
       20181232      8 digits with an invalid day gives an error
       201801012     9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error

       "Today's  date" can be overridden with the --today option, in case it's needed for testing
       or for recreating old reports.  (Except for periodic  transaction  rules,  which  are  not
       affected by --today.)

   Report intervals
       A  report  interval  can  be  specified so that reports like register, balance or activity
       become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a separate row or column.

       The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line flags:

       • -D/--daily

       • -W/--weekly

       • -M/--monthly

       • -Q/--quarterly

       • -Y/--yearly

       More complex intervals can be specified using -p/--period, described below.

   Date adjustment
       When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end dates which have been
       inferred,  eg  from  the journal, are automatically adjusted to natural period boundaries.
       This is convenient for producing simple periodic reports.  More precisely:

       • an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall on  a  natural  period
         boundary

       • an  inferred  end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the last period the same
         length as the others.

       By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly,  with  -b,  -e,  -p  or
       date:,  will not be adjusted (since hledger 1.29).  This makes it possible to specify non-
       standard report periods, but it also means that if you are specifying a  start  date,  you
       should  pick  one  that's  on  a  period  boundary if you want to see simple report period
       headings.

   Period expressions
       The -p/--period option specifies a period expression, which is a compact way of expressing
       a start date, end date, and/or report interval.

       Here's  a  period  expression  with  a start and end date (specifying the first quarter of
       2009):

       -p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"

       Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; these  are  optional.
       "to"  can  also  be  written as ".." or "-".  The spaces are also optional, as long as you
       don't run two dates together.  So the following are equivalent to the above:

       -p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1"
       -p2009/1/1to2009/4/1
       -p2009/1/1..2009/4/1

       Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also  equivalent  to  the
       above:

       -p "1/1 4/1"
       -p "jan-apr"
       -p "this year to 4/1"

       If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the earliest or latest
       transaction date in the journal:

       -p "from 2009/1/1"   everything after january 1, 2009
       -p "since 2009/1"    the same, since is a synonym
       -p "from 2009"       the same
       -p "to 2009"         everything  before  january   1,
                            2009

       You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full date:

       -p "2009"        the year 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1”
       -p "2009/1"      the  month  of january 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to
                        2009/2/1”
       -p "2009/1/1"    the first day  of  2009;  equivalent  to  “2009/1/1  to
                        2009/1/2”

       or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive):

       -p "2009Q1"       first  quarter  of  2009,  equivalent  to  “2009/1/1 to
                         2009/4/1”
       -p "q4"           fourth quarter of the current year

   Period expressions with a report interval
       A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated  from  the  start/end
       dates (if any) by a space or the word in:

       -p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
       -p "monthly in 2008"
       -p "quarterly"

   More complex report intervals
       Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, such as:

       • biweekly (every two weeks)

       • fortnightly

       • bimonthly (every two months)

       • every day|week|month|quarter|year

       • every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years

       Weekly on a custom day:

       • every Nth day of week (th, nd, rd, or st are all accepted after the number)

       • every WEEKDAYNAME (full or three-letter english weekday name, case insensitive)

       Monthly on a custom day:

       • every Nth day [of month]

       • every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month]

       Yearly on a custom day:

       • every MM/DD [of year] (month number and day of month number)

       • every  MONTHNAME  DDth  [of  year]  (full  or  three-letter  english  month  name,  case
         insensitive, and day of month number)

       • every DDth MONTHNAME [of year] (equivalent to the above)

       Examples:

       -p "bimonthly from 2008"
       -p "every 2 weeks"
       -p  "every  5  months  from
       2009/03"
       -p "every 2nd day of week"    periods will go from Tue to Tue
       -p "every Tue"                same
       -p "every 15th day"           period  boundaries  will be on 15th of each
                                     month
       -p "every 2nd Monday"         period boundaries will be on second  Monday
                                     of each month
       -p "every 11/05"              yearly  periods  with  boundaries on 5th of
                                     November
       -p "every 5th November"       same
       -p "every Nov 5th"            same

       Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is an end date, exclusive
       as always):

              $ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day"

       Group  postings  from  the  start  of wednesday to end of the following tuesday (N is both
       (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date):

              $ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week"

   Multiple weekday intervals
       This special form is also supported:

       • every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,... (full or  three-letter  english  weekday  names,  case
         insensitive)

       Also, weekday and weekendday are shorthand for mon,tue,wed,thu,fri and sat,sun.

       This  is  mainly  intended  for  use with --forecast, to generate periodic transactions on
       arbitrary days of the week.  It may be less useful with -p, since  it  divides  each  week
       into subperiods of unequal length, which is unusual.  (Related: #1632)

       Examples:

       -p          "every   dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods  will  be  Mon-
       mon,wed,fri"         Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun
       -p "every weekday"   dates  will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will
                            be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun
       -p          "every   dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri
       weekendday"

Depth

       With  the  --depth  NUM  option (short form: -NUM), reports will show accounts only to the
       specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts.  Use this when you want a  summary  with  less
       detail.   This  flag has the same effect as a depth: query argument: depth:2, --depth=2 or
       -2 are equivalent.

Queries

One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise subset of your
data. Most hledger commands accept optional query arguments to restrict their scope. The
syntax is as follows:

• Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often account name substrings:

utilities food:groceries

• Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in quotes:

"personal care"

• Regular expressions are also supported:

"^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)"

• Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data:

date:202312- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status:

• Add a not: prefix to negate a term:

not:cur:USD

Query types
Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be prefixed with not:
to convert them into a negative match.

acct:REGEX, REGEX
Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular expression. This is the
default query type when there is no prefix, and regular expression syntax is typically not
needed, so usually we just write an account name substring, like expenses or food.

amt:N, amt:<N, amt:<=N, amt:>N, amt:>=N
Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or greater than N.
(Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested and will always match.) The
comparison has two modes: if N is preceded by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed
numbers are compared. Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign.

code:REGEX
Match by transaction code (eg check number).

cur:REGEX
Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose currency/commodity symbol is
fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial match, use .*REGEX.*). Note, to match special
characters which are regex-significant, you need to escape them with \. And for
characters which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of escaping.
So eg to match the dollar sign:
hledger print cur:\\$.

desc:REGEX
Match transaction descriptions.

date:PERIODEXPR
Match dates (or with the --date2 flag, secondary dates) within the specified period.
PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report interval. Examples:
date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2/1-2/15, date:2021-07-27..nextquarter.

date2:PERIODEXPR
Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the --date2 flag).

depth:N
Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this depth.

note:REGEX
Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of |, or the whole description
if there's no |).

payee:REGEX
Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left of |, or the whole
description if there's no |).

real:, real:0
Match real or virtual postings respectively.

status:, status:!, status:*
Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively.

type:TYPECODES
Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). TYPECODES is one or more
of the single-letter account type codes ALERXCV, case insensitive. Note type:A and type:E
will also match their respective subtypes C (Cash) and V (Conversion). Certain kinds of
account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account
types.

tag:REGEX[=REGEX]
Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by value, use
tag:.=REGEX.)

When querying by tag, note that:

• Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts

• Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction

• Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings.

(inacct:ACCTNAME
A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells hledger-web to show the
transaction register for an account.)

Combining query terms
When given multiple space-separated query terms, most commands select things which match:

• any of the description terms AND

• any of the account terms AND

• any of the status terms AND

• all the other terms.

The print command is a little different, showing transactions which:

• match any of the description terms AND

• have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND

• have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND

• match all the other terms.

We also support more complex boolean queries with the 'expr:' prefix. This allows one to
combine queries using one of three operators: AND, OR, and NOT, where NOT is different
syntax for 'not:'.

Examples of such queries are:

• Match transactions with 'cool' in the description AND with the 'A' tag

expr:"desc:cool AND tag:A"

• Match transactions NOT to the 'expenses:food' account OR with the 'A' tag

expr:"NOT expenses:food OR tag:A"

• Match transactions NOT involving the 'expenses:food' account OR with the 'A' tag AND
involving the 'expenses:drink' account. (the AND is implicitly added by space-
separation, following the rules above)

expr:"expenses:food OR (tag:A expenses:drink)"

Queries and command options
Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: depth:2 is equivalent to
--depth 2, date:2023 is equivalent to -p 2023, etc. When you mix command options and
query arguments, generally the resulting query is their intersection.

Queries and valuation
When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value reports, cur: and amt:
match the old commodity symbol and the old amount quantity, not the new ones (except in
hledger 1.22.0 where it's reversed, see #1625).

Querying with account aliases
When account names are rewritten with --alias or alias, note that acct: will match either
the old or the new account name.

Querying with cost or value
When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value reports, note that cur:
matches the new commodity symbol, and not the old one, and amt: matches the new quantity,
and not the old one. Note: this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse,
see the discussion at #1625.

Pivoting

       Normally,  hledger  groups and sums amounts within each account.  The --pivot FIELD option
       substitutes some other transaction field for account names, causing amounts to be  grouped
       and  summed  by  that  field's  value instead.  FIELD can be any of the transaction fields
       status, code, description, payee, note, or a tag name.  When  pivoting  on  a  tag  and  a
       posting  has  multiple  values  of  that  tag,  only the first value is displayed.  Values
       containing colon:separated:parts will be displayed hierarchically, like account names.

       Some examples:

              2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment
                  assets:bank account                 2 EUR
                  income:dues                        -2 EUR  ; member: John Doe

       Normal balance report showing account names:

              $ hledger balance
                             2 EUR  assets:bank account
                            -2 EUR  income:dues
              --------------------
                                 0

       Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead:

              $ hledger balance --pivot member
                             2 EUR
                            -2 EUR  John Doe
              --------------------
                                 0

       One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query):

              $ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=.
                            -2 EUR  John Doe
              --------------------
                            -2 EUR

       Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account name"):

              $ hledger balance --pivot member acct:.
                            -2 EUR  John Doe
              --------------------
                            -2 EUR

Generating data

hledger has several features for generating data, such as:

• Periodic transaction rules can generate single or repeating transactions following a
template. These are usually dated in the future, eg to help with forecasting. They are
activated by the --forecast option.

• The balance command's --budget option uses these same periodic rules to generate goals
for the budget report.

• Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain matched transactions. They
are always applied to forecast transactions; with the --auto flag they are applied to
transactions recorded in the journal as well.

• The --infer-equity flag infers missing conversion equity postings from @/@@ costs. And
the inverse --infer-costs flag infers missing @/@@ costs from conversion equity
postings.

Generated data of this kind is temporary, existing only at report time. But you can see
it in the output of hledger print, and you can save that to your journal, in effect
converting it from temporary generated data to permanent recorded data. This could be
useful as a data entry aid.

If you are wondering what data is being generated and why, add the --verbose-tags flag.
In hledger print output you will see extra tags like generated-transaction, generated-
posting, and modified on generated/modified data. Also, even without --verbose-tags,
generated data always has equivalen hidden tags (with an underscore prefix), so eg you
could match generated transactions with tag:_generated-transaction.

Forecasting

       Forecasting, or  speculative  future  reporting,  can  be  useful  for  estimating  future
       balances, or for exploring different future scenarios.

       The  simplest and most flexible way to do it with hledger is to manually record a bunch of
       future-dated transactions.  You could keep these in a separate future.journal and  include
       that with -f only when you want to see them.

   --forecast
       There is another way: with the --forecast option, hledger can generate temporary "forecast
       transactions" for reporting purposes, according to periodic transaction rules  defined  in
       the  journal.   Each rule can generate multiple recurring transactions, so by changing one
       rule you can change many forecasted transactions.  (These same  rules  can  also  generate
       budget goals, described in Budgeting.)

       Forecast  transactions  usually  start  after ordinary transactions end.  By default, they
       begin after your latest-dated ordinary transaction, or today, whichever is later, and they
       end  six months from today.  (The exact rules are a little more complicated, and are given
       below.)

       This is the "forecast period", which need not be the same as the report period.   You  can
       override it - eg to forecast farther into the future, or to force forecast transactions to
       overlap your ordinary transactions - by giving the --forecast option a  period  expression
       argument, like --forecast=..2099 or --forecast=2023-02-15...  Note that the = is required.

   Inspecting forecast transactions
       print is the best command for inspecting and troubleshooting forecast transactions.  Eg:

              ~ monthly from 2022-12-20    rent
                  assets:bank:checking
                  expenses:rent           $1000

              $ hledger print --forecast --today=2023/4/21
              2023-05-20 rent
                  ; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
                  assets:bank:checking
                  expenses:rent                  $1000

              2023-06-20 rent
                  ; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
                  assets:bank:checking
                  expenses:rent                  $1000

              2023-07-20 rent
                  ; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
                  assets:bank:checking
                  expenses:rent                  $1000

              2023-08-20 rent
                  ; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
                  assets:bank:checking
                  expenses:rent                  $1000

              2023-09-20 rent
                  ; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
                  assets:bank:checking
                  expenses:rent                  $1000

       Here there are no ordinary transactions, so the forecasted transactions begin on the first
       occurence after today's date.  (You won't normally use --today; it's just  to  make  these
       examples reproducible.)

   Forecast reports
       Forecast transactions affect all reports, as you would expect.  Eg:

              $ hledger areg rent --forecast --today=2023/4/21
              Transactions in expenses:rent and subaccounts:
              2023-05-20 rent                 as:ba:checking               $1000         $1000
              2023-06-20 rent                 as:ba:checking               $1000         $2000
              2023-07-20 rent                 as:ba:checking               $1000         $3000
              2023-08-20 rent                 as:ba:checking               $1000         $4000
              2023-09-20 rent                 as:ba:checking               $1000         $5000

              $ hledger bal -M expenses --forecast --today=2023/4/21
              Balance changes in 2023-05-01..2023-09-30:

                             ||   May    Jun    Jul    Aug    Sep
              ===============++===================================
               expenses:rent || $1000  $1000  $1000  $1000  $1000
              ---------------++-----------------------------------
                             || $1000  $1000  $1000  $1000  $1000

   Forecast tags
       Forecast  transactions  generated by --forecast have a hidden tag, _generated-transaction.
       So if you ever  need  to  match  forecast  transactions,  you  could  use  tag:_generated-
       transaction (or just tag:generated) in a query.

       For  troubleshooting,  you  can  add  the  --verbose-tags  flag.  Then, visible generated-
       transaction tags will be added also, so you can view them with the print  command.   Their
       value indicates which periodic rule was responsible.

   Forecast period, in detail
       Forecast  start/end dates are chosen so as to do something useful by default in almost all
       situations, while also being flexible.  Here are (with luck) the exact rules, to help with
       troubleshooting:

       The forecast period starts on:

       • the later of

         • the start date in the periodic transaction rule

         • the start date in --forecast's argument

       • otherwise (if those are not available): the later of

         • the report start date specified with -b/-p/date:

         • the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal

       • otherwise (if none of these are available): today.

       The forecast period ends on:

       • the earlier of

         • the end date in the periodic transaction rule

         • the end date in --forecast's argument

       • otherwise: the report end date specified with -e/-p/date:

       • otherwise: 180 days (~6 months) from today.

   Forecast troubleshooting
       When --forecast is not doing what you expect, one of these tips should help:

       • Remember to use the --forecast option.

       • Remember to have at least one periodic transaction rule in your journal.

       • Test with print --forecast.

       • Check for typos or too-restrictive start/end dates in your periodic transaction rule.

       • Leave at least 2 spaces between the rule's period expression and description fields.

       • Check for future-dated ordinary transactions suppressing forecasted transactions.

       • Try setting explicit report start and/or end dates with -b, -e, -p or date:

       • Try adding the -E flag to encourage display of empty periods/zero transactions.

       • Try setting explicit forecast start and/or end dates with --forecast=START..END

       • Consult Forecast period, in detail, above.

       • Check inside the engine: add --debug=2 (eg).

Budgeting

       With  the  balance  command's  --budget  report,  each periodic transaction rule generates
       recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals  and  actual  performance  can  be
       compared.  See the balance command's doc below.

       You can generate budget goals and forecast transactions at the same time, from the same or
       different periodic transaction rules: hledger bal -M --budget --forecast ...

       See also: Budgeting and Forecasting.

Cost reporting

       This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions where one commodity is
       exchanged for another.  Eg an exchange of currency, or a stock purchase or sale.  First, a
       quick glossary:

       • Conversion - an exchange of one  currency  or  commodity  for  another.   Eg  a  foreign
         currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or cryptocurrency.

       • Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more conversions.

       • Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, ie the exchange rate.

       • Cost  - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other.  And more generally, in
         hledger docs: the amount exchanged in  the  "secondary"  commodity  (usually  your  base
         currency),  whether in a purchase or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total.
         Also, the "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this.

   -B: Convert to cost
       As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction  you  can  also  record  the
       amount's cost in another commodity, by adding @ UNITPRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE.

       Then  you  can  see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding the -B/--cost flag.
       (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger).  Eg:

              2022-01-01
                assets:dollars  $-135          ; 135 dollars is exchanged for..
                assets:euros     €100 @ $1.35  ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each

              $ hledger bal -N
                             $-135  assets:dollars
                              €100  assets:euros
              $ hledger bal -N -B
                             $-135  assets:dollars
                              $135  assets:euros    # <- the euros' cost

       Notes:

       -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the inferred price  will
       be  in  the  commodity of the last amount.  So if example 3's postings are reversed, while
       the transaction is equivalent, -B shows something different:

              2022-01-01
                assets:dollars  $-135              ; 135 dollars sold
                assets:euros     €100              ; for 100 euros

              $ hledger bal -N -B
                             €-100  assets:dollars  # <- the dollars' selling price
                              €100  assets:euros

       The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does  not  truly  balance
       the  transaction,  so  it  disrupts the accounting equation and tends to causes a non-zero
       total in balance reports.

   Equity conversion postings
       By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses  a  different  notation:  an
       extra  pair  of  equity  postings  to balance conversion transactions.  In this style, the
       above entry might be written:

              2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each
                  assets:dollars      $-135
                  equity:conversion    $135
                  equity:conversion   €-100
                  assets:euros         €100

       This style is more correct, but it's also more  verbose  and  makes  cost  reporting  more
       difficult for PTA tools.

       Happily,  current  hledger  can  read  either  notation,  or convert one to the other when
       needed, so you can use the one you prefer.

       You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at the  same  time,  for
       clarity.  hledger will ignore the redundancy.  But be sure the cost and conversion posting
       amounts match, or you'll see a not-so-clear transaction balancing error message.

   Inferring equity postings from cost
       With --infer-equity, hledger detects transactions written with PTA cost notation and  adds
       equity conversion postings to them:

              2022-01-01
                assets:dollars  -$135
                assets:euros     €100 @ $1.35

              $ hledger print --infer-equity
              2022-01-01
                  assets:dollars                    $-135
                  assets:euros               €100 @ $1.35
                  equity:conversion:$-€:€           €-100  ; generated-posting:
                  equity:conversion:$-€:$         $135.00  ; generated-posting:

       The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion account type declaration.

       --infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded using cost notation, to
       help preserve the accounting equation and balance reports' zero total, or to produce  more
       conventional journal entries for sharing with non-PTA-users.

   Inferring cost from equity postings
       The  reverse operation is possible using --infer-costs, which detects transactions written
       with equity conversion postings and adds cost notation to them:

              2022-01-01
                  assets:dollars            $-135
                  equity:conversion          $135
                  equity:conversion         €-100
                  assets:euros               €100

              $ hledger print --infer-costs
              2022-01-01
                  assets:dollars       $-135 @@ €100
                  equity:conversion             $135
                  equity:conversion            €-100
                  assets:euros                  €100

       --infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/--cost, allowing cost  reporting  even  when
       transactions have been recorded using equity postings:

              $ hledger print --infer-costs -B
              2009-01-01
                  assets:dollars           €-100
                  assets:euros              €100

       Notes:

       For --infer-costs to work, an exchange must consist of four postings:

       1. two non-equity postings

       2. two equity postings, next to one another

       3. the  equity  accounts  must be declared, with account type V/Conversion (or if they are
          not declared, they must be named  equity:conversion,  equity:trade,  equity:trading  or
          subaccounts of these)

       4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity postings' amounts.

       Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction.

       When  inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added to the first of the
       non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in the  commodity  of  the  last  non-equity
       posting  involved  in  the  exchange.   If  you  don't  want to write your postings in the
       required order, you can use explicit cost notation instead.

       --infer-equity and --infer-costs can be used together, if  you  have  a  mixture  of  both
       notations in your journal.

   When to infer cost/equity
       Inferring  equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled by default.  We're
       not sure yet if that should change.  Here are two suggestions to try,  experience  reports
       welcome:

       1. When you use -B, always use --infer-costs as well.  Eg: hledger bal -B --infer-costs

       2. Always  run  hledger  with  both  flags  enabled.  Eg: alias hl="hledger --infer-equity
          --infer-costs"

   How to record conversions
       Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in hledger.   Here  are
       all of them, with pros and cons.

   Conversion with implicit cost
       Let's  assume  100 EUR is converted to 120 USD.  You can just record the outflow (100 EUR)
       and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset account:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash    -100 EUR
                  assets:cash     120 USD

       hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the conversion rate  must
       be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD.  You can see the inferred rate by using hledger print -x.

       Pro:

       • Concise, easy

       Con:

       • Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not be detected

       • Conversion rate is not clear

       • Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity flag

       You  can  prevent  accidental  implicit conversions due to a mistyped commodity symbol, by
       using hledger check commodities.

       You   can   prevent   implicit   conversions   entirely,   by    using    hledger    check
       balancednoautoconversion, or -s/--strict.

   Conversion with explicit cost
       You can add the conversion rate using @ notation:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash        -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD
                  assets:cash         120 USD

       Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an error otherwise.

       Pro:

       • Still concise

       • Makes the conversion rate clear

       • Provides more error checking

       Con:

       • Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity flag

   Conversion with equity postings
       In  strict  double  entry  bookkeeping, the above transaction is not balanced in EUR or in
       USD, since some EUR disappears, and  some  USD  appears.   This  violates  the  accounting
       equation  (A+L+E=0),  and  prevents  reports  like  balancesheetequity from showing a zero
       total.

       The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for each commodity,  using
       an equity account:

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash        -100 EUR
                  equity:conversion   100 EUR
                  equity:conversion  -120 USD
                  assets:cash         120 USD

       Pro:

       • Preserves the accounting equation

       • Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place

       • Standard, works in any double entry accounting system

       Con:

       • More verbose

       • Conversion rate is not obvious

       • Cost reporting requires adding the --infer-costs flag

   Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost
       Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together.

              2021-01-01
                  assets:cash        -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD
                  equity:conversion   100 EUR
                  equity:conversion  -120 USD
                  assets:cash         120 USD

       Pro:

       • Preserves the accounting equation

       • Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place

       • Makes the conversion rate clear

       • Provides more error checking

       Con:

       • Most verbose

       • Not compatible with ledger

   Cost tips
       • Recording  the  cost/conversion  rate explicitly is good because it makes that clear and
         helps detect errors.

       • Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping  and  preserves  the
         accounting equation.

       • Combining these is possible.

       • When  you  want  to  see  the  cost  (or sale proceeds) of things, use -B (short form of
         --cost).

       • If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add --infer-costs also.

       • If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want  to  see  a  balanced
         balance sheet or print correct journal entries, use --infer-equity.

       • Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next).

Valuation

       Instead  of  reporting  amounts  in  their original commodity, hledger can convert them to
       cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in the transaction), and/or to market
       value  (using  some  market  price  on  a  certain  date).   This  is  controlled  by  the
       --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] option, which will be  described  below.   We  also  provide  the
       simpler -V and -X COMMODITY options, and often one of these is all you need:

   -V: Value
       The  -V/--market  flag  converts  amounts  to  market  value  in  their  default valuation
       commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation date(s), if  any.   More  on
       these in a minute.

   -X: Value in specified commodity
       The  -X/--exchange=COMM  option  is like -V, except you tell it which currency you want to
       convert to, and it tries to convert everything to that.

   Valuation date
       Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports have a valuation date
       (or more than one), which determines which market prices will be used.

       For  single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, that will be used
       as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date is the journal's end date.

       For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day of  the  period,  by
       default.

   Finding market price
       To  convert  a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, hledger looks for a
       suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in this order of preference :

       1. A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest market price in  B  on  or
          before  the  valuation  date as declared by a P directive, or (with the --infer-market-
          prices flag) inferred from costs.

       2. A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market price from B to A.

       3. A forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed by  combining  the  shortest
          chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market prices, leading from A to B.

       4. Any  chain  of  market prices: a chain of any market prices, including both forward and
          reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to B.

       There is a limit to the length of these price  chains;  if  hledger  reaches  that  length
       without  finding a complete chain or exhausting all possibilities, it will give up (with a
       "gave up" message visible in --debug=2 output).  That limit is currently 1000.

       Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not converted.

   --infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions
       Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires,  P  directives  in
       your  journal.   Since  adding  and  updating those can be a chore, and since transactions
       usually take place at close to market value, why not use the recorded costs as  additional
       market  prices  (as  Ledger  does)  ?   Adding the --infer-market-prices flag to -V, -X or
       --value enables this.

       So for example, hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices will get market  prices  both  from  P
       directives  and  from  transactions.  If both occur on the same day, the P directive takes
       precedence.

       There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in  confusing/undesired  ways
       by  your  journal  entries.   If  this  happens to you, read all of this Valuation section
       carefully, and try adding --debug or --debug=2 to troubleshoot.

       --infer-market-prices can infer market prices from:

       • multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@)

       • multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no @,  two  commodities,  unbalanced).
         (With  these,  the  order  of  postings  matters.   hledger  print  -x can be useful for
         troubleshooting.)

       • multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if  cost  is  inferred  with  --infer-
         costs.

       There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is not specified, prices
       inferred with --infer-market-prices do not help select a default valuation commodity, as P
       prices  would.  So conversion might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected
       (--debug=2 will show this).  To be safe, specify the valuation commmodity, eg:

       • -X EUR --infer-market-prices, not -V --infer-market-prices

       • --value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices, not --value=then --infer-market-prices

       Signed costs and market prices can be confusing.   For  reference,  here  is  the  current
       behaviour, since hledger 1.25.  (If you think it should work differently, see #1870.)

              2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices
                  a        A 1
                  b        B -1 @ A 1

              2022-01-01 Positive Total prices
                  a        A 1
                  b        B -1 @@ A 1

              2022-01-02 Negative unit prices
                  a        A 1
                  b        B 1 @ A -1

              2022-01-02 Negative total prices
                  a        A 1
                  b        B 1 @@ A -1

              2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices
                  a        A -1
                  b        B -1 @ A -1

              2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices
                  a        A -1
                  b        B -1 @@ A -1

       All  of  the  transactions  above  are  considered  balanced  (and  on  each  day, the two
       transactions are considered equivalent).  Here are the market prices inferred for B:

              $ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices
              P 2022-01-01 B A 1
              P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0
              P 2022-01-02 B A -1
              P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0
              P 2022-01-03 B A -1
              P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0

   Valuation commodity
       When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM):
       hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find  a  suitable  market  price
       (including by reversing or chaining prices).

       When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (-V or --value TYPE):
       For  each  commodity  A,  hledger  picks a default valuation commodity as follows, in this
       order of preference:

       1. The price commodity from the  latest  P-declared  market  price  for  A  on  or  before
          valuation date.

       2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on any date.  (Allows
          conversion to proceed when there are inferred prices before the valuation date.)

       3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or  date)  and  the  --infer-market-
          prices flag is used: the price commodity from the latest transaction-inferred price for
          A on or before valuation date.

       This means:

       • If you have P directives, they determine which commodities -V will convert, and to what.

       • If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-market-prices flag, costs determine it.

       Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not converted.

   Simple valuation examples
       Here are some quick examples of -V:

              ; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1
              P 2016/11/01 € $1.10

              ; purchase some euros on nov 3
              2016/11/3
                  assets:euros        €100
                  assets:checking

              ; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21
              P 2016/12/21 € $1.03

       How many euros do I have ?

              $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros
                              €100  assets:euros

       What are they worth at end of nov 3 ?

              $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4
                           $110.00  assets:euros

       What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ?  (no report end date specified, defaults to today)

              $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V
                           $103.00  assets:euros

   --value: Flexible valuation
       -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option:

               --value=TYPE[,COMM]  TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD.
                                    COMM is an optional commodity symbol.
                                    Shows amounts converted to:
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s)
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices
                                    - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date

       The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date:

       --value=then
              Convert amounts to their value in the default  valuation  commodity,  using  market
              prices on each posting's date.

       --value=end
              Convert  amounts  to  their  value in the default valuation commodity, using market
              prices on the last day of the report period (or if unspecified, the  journal's  end
              date); or in multiperiod reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod.

       --value=now
              Convert  amounts  to  their  value in the default valuation commodity using current
              market prices (as of when report is generated).

       --value=YYYY-MM-DD
              Convert amounts to their value in the  default  valuation  commodity  using  market
              prices on this date.

       To  select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part: a comma, then the
       target commodity's symbol.  Eg: --value=now,EUR.  hledger will  do  its  best  to  convert
       amounts to this commodity, deducing market prices as described above.

   More valuation examples
       Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as seen with print:

              P 2000-01-01 A  1 B
              P 2000-02-01 A  2 B
              P 2000-03-01 A  3 B
              P 2000-04-01 A  4 B

              2000-01-01
                (a)      1 A @ 5 B

              2000-02-01
                (a)      1 A @ 6 B

              2000-03-01
                (a)      1 A @ 7 B

       Show the cost of each posting:

              $ hledger -f- print --cost
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             5 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             6 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             7 B

       Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29):

              $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             2 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             2 B

       With  no  report  period specified, that shows the value as of the last day of the journal
       (2000-03-01):

              $ hledger -f- print --value=end
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             3 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             3 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             3 B

       Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today):

              $ hledger -f- print --value=now
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             4 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             4 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             4 B

       Show the value on 2000/01/15:

              $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15
              2000-01-01
                  (a)             1 B

              2000-02-01
                  (a)             1 B

              2000-03-01
                  (a)             1 B

       You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when reverse prices are  used.
       Eg this output might be surprising:

              P 2000-01-01 A 2B

              2000-01-01
                a  1B
                b

              $ hledger print -x -X A
              2000-01-01
                  a               0
                  b               0

       Explanation:  because  there's no amount or commodity directive specifying a display style
       for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no decimal digits.  Because the  displayed
       amount  looks  like  zero,  the  commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either.
       Adding a commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A:

              P 2000-01-01 A 2B
              commodity 0.00A

              2000-01-01
                a  1B
                b

              $ hledger print -X A
              2000-01-01
                  a           0.50A
                  b          -0.50A

   Interaction of valuation and queries
       When matching postings based on queries  in  the  presence  of  valuation,  the  following
       happens.

       1. The query is separated into two parts:

           1. the currency (cur:) or amount (amt:).

           2. all other parts.

       2. The  postings  are  matched  to  the  currency  and  amount queries based on pre-valued
          amounts.

       3. Valuation is applied to the postings.

       4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on post-valued amounts.

       See: 1625

   Effect of valuation on reports
       Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of hledger's reports
       (and  a  glossary).   (It's  wide, you'll have to scroll sideways.)  It may be useful when
       troubleshooting.  If you find problems, please report them, ideally  with  a  reproducible
       example.  Related: #329, #1083.

       Report                   -B, --cost     -V, -X         --value=then        --value=end    --value=DATE,
       type                                                                                      --value=now
       ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       print
       posting                  cost           value     at   value  at posting   value     at   value      at
       amounts                                 report   end   date                report    or   DATE/today
                                               or today                           journal end
       balance                  unchanged      unchanged      unchanged           unchanged      unchanged
       assertions/assignments

       register
       starting balance (-H)    cost           value     at   valued   at   day   value     at   value      at
                                               report    or   each   historical   report    or   DATE/today
                                               journal end    posting was made    journal end
       starting balance  (-H)   cost           value at day   valued   at   day   value at day   value      at
       with report interval                    before         each   historical   before         DATE/today
                                               report    or   posting was made    report    or
                                               journal                            journal
                                               start                              start
       posting amounts          cost           value     at   value at  posting   value     at   value      at
                                               report    or   date                report    or   DATE/today
                                               journal end                        journal end
       summary        posting   summarised     value     at   sum  of  postings   value     at   value      at
       amounts   with  report   cost           period ends    in      interval,   period ends    DATE/today
       interval                                               valued         at
                                                              interval start
       running total/average    sum/average    sum/average    sum/average    of   sum/average    sum/average
                                of displayed   of displayed   displayed values    of displayed   of  displayed
                                values         values                             values         values

       balance (bs, bse,  cf,
       is)
       balance changes          sums      of   value     at   value at  posting   value     at   value      at
                                costs          report   end   date                report    or   DATE/today of
                                               or today  of                       journal  end   sums       of
                                               sums      of                       of  sums  of   postings
                                               postings                           postings
       budget         amounts   like balance   like balance   like      balance   like           like  balance
       (--budget)               changes        changes        changes             balances       changes
       grand total              sum       of   sum       of   sum of  displayed   sum       of   sum        of
                                displayed      displayed      valued              displayed      displayed
                                values         values                             values         values

       balance  (bs, bse, cf,
       is)    with     report
       interval

       starting balances (-H)   sums      of   value     at   sums of values of   value     at   sums       of
                                costs     of   report start   postings   before   report start   postings
                                postings       of  sums  of   report  start  at   of  sums  of   before report
                                before         all postings   respective          all postings   start
                                report start   before         posting dates       before
                                               report start                       report start
       balance changes  (bal,   sums      of   same      as   sums of values of   balance        value      at
       is,  bs  --change,  cf   costs     of   --value=end    postings       in   change    in   DATE/today of
       --change)                postings  in                  period         at   each period,   sums       of
                                period                        respective          valued    at   postings
                                                              posting dates       period ends
       end  balances (bal -H,   sums      of   same      as   sums of values of   period   end   value      at
       is --H, bs, cf)          costs     of   --value=end    postings     from   balances,      DATE/today of
                                postings                      before     period   valued    at   sums       of
                                from  before                  start  to  period   period ends    postings
                                report start                  end at respective
                                to    period                  posting dates
                                end
       budget         amounts   like balance   like balance   like      balance   like           like  balance
       (--budget)               changes/end    changes/end    changes/end         balances       changes/end
                                balances       balances       balances                           balances
       row    totals,     row   sums,          sums,          sums, averages of   sums,          sums,
       averages (-T, -A)        averages  of   averages  of   displayed values    averages  of   averages   of
                                displayed      displayed                          displayed      displayed
                                values         values                             values         values
       column totals            sums      of   sums      of   sums of displayed   sums      of   sums       of
                                displayed      displayed      values              displayed      displayed
                                values         values                             values         values
       grand   total,   grand   sum, average   sum, average   sum,  average  of   sum, average   sum,  average
       average                  of    column   of    column   column totals       of    column   of     column
                                totals         totals                             totals         totals

       --cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like -H but with a zero starting balance.

       Glossary:

       cost   calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s).

       value  market  value using available market price declarations, or the unchanged amount if
              no conversion rate can be found.

       report start
              the first day of the report period specified with -b  or  -p  or  date:,  otherwise
              today.

       report or journal start
              the  first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or date:, otherwise the
              earliest transaction date in the journal, otherwise today.

       report end
              the last day of the report period specified with  -e  or  -p  or  date:,  otherwise
              today.

       report or journal end
              the  last  day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, otherwise the
              latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise today.

       report interval
              a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that  activates  the  report's  multi-
              period mode (whether showing one or many subperiods).

PART 4: COMMANDS

   Commands overview
       Here are the built-in commands:

   DATA ENTRY
       These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your journal file.

       • add - add transactions using terminal prompts

       • import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files

   DATA CREATION
       • close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions

       • rewrite - generate auto postings, like print --auto

   DATA MANAGEMENT
       • check - check for various kinds of error in the data

       • diff - compare account transactions in two journal files

   REPORTS, FINANCIAL
       • aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account

       • balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth

       • balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity

       • cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets

       • incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses

   REPORTS, VERSATILE
       • balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, gains..

       • print - show transactions or export journal data

       • register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running total

       • roi - show return on investments

   REPORTS, BASIC
       • accounts - show account names

       • activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period

       • codes - show transaction codes

       • commodities - show commodity/currency symbols

       • descriptions - show transaction descriptions

       • files - show input file paths

       • notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions

       • payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions

       • prices - show market prices

       • stats - show journal statistics

       • tags - show tag names

       • test - run self tests

   HELP
       • help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager

       • demo - show small hledger demos in the terminal

   ADD-ONS
       And  here  are  some typical add-on commands.  Some of these are installed by the hledger-
       install script.  If installed, they will appear in hledger's commands list:

       • ui - run hledger's terminal UI

       • web - run hledger's web UI

       • iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build)

       • interest - generate interest transactions

       • stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage

       • Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git,  move,  pijul,  plot,  and
         more..

       Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order.

   accounts
       Show account names.

       This  command lists account names.  By default it shows all known accounts, either used in
       transactions or declared with account directives.

       With query arguments, only matched account names and account names referenced  by  matched
       postings are shown.

       Or  it can show just the used accounts (--used/-u), the declared accounts (--declared/-d),
       the accounts declared but  not  used  (--unused),  the  accounts  used  but  not  declared
       (--undeclared), or the first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (--find).

       It  shows  a  flat  list by default.  With --tree, it uses indentation to show the account
       hierarchy.  In flat mode you can  add  --drop  N  to  omit  the  first  few  account  name
       components.  Account names can be depth-clipped with depth:N or --depth N or -N.

       With --types, it also shows each account's type, if it's known.  (See Declaring accounts >
       Account types.)

       With --positions, it also shows the file and line number of each account's declaration, if
       any, and the account's overall declaration order; these may be useful when troubleshooting
       account display order.

       With --directives, it adds the account keyword, showing valid account directives which can
       be  pasted  into  a journal file.  This is useful together with --undeclared when updating
       your account declarations to satisfy hledger check accounts.

       The --find flag can be used to look up a single account name, in the  same  way  that  the
       aregister command does.  It returns the alphanumerically-first matched account name, or if
       none can be found, it fails with a non-zero exit code.

       Examples:

              $ hledger accounts
              assets:bank:checking
              assets:bank:saving
              assets:cash
              expenses:food
              expenses:supplies
              income:gifts
              income:salary
              liabilities:debts

              $ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE
              $ hledger check accounts

   activity
       Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval.

       The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction counts by day,  week,
       month  or  other  reporting  interval  (by  day is the default).  With query arguments, it
       counts only matched transactions.

       Examples:

              $ hledger activity --quarterly
              2008-01-01 **
              2008-04-01 *******
              2008-07-01
              2008-10-01 **

   add
       Prompt for transactions and add them to the  journal.   Any  arguments  will  be  used  as
       default inputs for the first N prompts.

       Many  hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, or generate them from
       CSV.   For  more  interactive  data  entry,  there  is  the  add  command,  which  prompts
       interactively  on  the  console for new transactions, and appends them to the main journal
       file (which should be in journal format).  Existing transactions are not changed.  This is
       one of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also import).

       To  use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts.  You can add as many transactions
       as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press control-d or control-c to exit.

       Features:

       • add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most  similar  (by  description)  recent
         transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as a template.

       • You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments.

       • Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry.

       • The  tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, payees/descriptions, dates
         (yesterday, today, tomorrow).  If the input area is empty, it will  insert  the  default
         value.

       • If  the  journal  defines  a  default  commodity,  it  will be added to any bare numbers
         entered.

       • A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date.

       • Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount.

       • If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward.

       • Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal supports it.

       Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial):

              $ hledger add
              Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal
              Any command line arguments will be used as defaults.
              Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults.
              An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates.
              An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts.
              If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward.
              To end a transaction, enter . when prompted.
              To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c.
              Date [2015/05/22]:
              Description: supermarket
              Account 1: expenses:food
              Amount  1: $10
              Account 2: assets:checking
              Amount  2 [$-10.0]:
              Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
              2015/05/22 supermarket
                  expenses:food             $10
                  assets:checking        $-10.0

              Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]:
              Saved.
              Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
              Date [2015/05/22]: <CTRL-D> $

       On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the file path ends with a
       period, as that would cause problems (#1056).

   aregister
       (areg)

       Show  the  transactions  and  running  historical  balance  of a single account, with each
       transaction displayed as one line.

       aregister  shows  the  overall  transactions  affecting  a  particular  account  (and  any
       subaccounts).   Each report line represents one transaction in this account.  Transactions
       before the report start date are always included in the running balance (--historical mode
       is always on).

       This  is  a  more  "real  world",  bank-like  view  than the register command (which shows
       individual postings, possibly from multiple accounts, not necessarily in historical mode).
       As  a  quick  rule  of  thumb:  -  use  aregister for reviewing and reconciling real-world
       asset/liability accounts - use register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses.

       aregister requires one argument: the account to report on.  You can write either the  full
       account   name,   or   a   case-insensitive  regular  expression  which  will  select  the
       alphabetically first matched account.

       When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can be surprising; eg  if
       you  have  assets:per:checking 1 and assets:biz:checking 2 accounts, hledger areg checking
       would select assets:biz:checking 2.  It's just a convenience to  save  typing,  so  if  in
       doubt, write the full account name, or a distinctive substring that matches uniquely.

       Transactions  involving subaccounts of this account will also be shown.  aregister ignores
       depth limits, so its  final  total  will  always  match  a  balance  report  with  similar
       arguments.

       Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the transactions shown.  Note some
       queries will disturb the running balance, causing it to be different  from  the  account's
       real-world running balance.

       An example: this shows the transactions and historical running balance during july, in the
       first account whose name contains "checking":

              $ hledger areg checking date:jul

       Each aregister line item shows:

       • the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if different, see below)

       • the  names  of  all  the  other  account(s)  involved  in  this  transaction   (probably
         abbreviated)

       • the total change to this account's balance from this transaction

       • the account's historical running balance after this transaction.

       Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add the -E/--empty flag
       to show them.

       For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on  the  first  1000  lines;  this
       means  unusually  wide  values  in  later lines can cause visual discontinuities as column
       widths are adjusted.  If you want to ensure perfect alignment, at the cost  of  more  time
       and memory, use the --align-all flag.

       This  command  also supports the output destination and output format options.  The output
       formats supported are txt, csv, and json.

   aregister and custom posting dates
       Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be shown, if  they  have  a
       posting  to  this  account  dated  inside  the  report period.  (And in this case it's the
       posting date that is shown.)  This ensures that aregister can show an accurate  historical
       running balance, matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments.

       To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates flag.  If you use this
       flag and some of your postings have custom dates, it's probably best to assume the running
       balance is wrong.

   balance
       (bal)

       Show accounts and their balances.

       balance  is  one  of  hledger's  oldest  and  most versatile commands, for listing account
       balances, balance changes, values, value changes and more, during one time period or many.
       Generally  it  shows  a  table,  with rows representing accounts, and columns representing
       periods.

       Note there are some higher-level variants of the balance command with convenient defaults,
       which   can   be   simpler   to   use:   balancesheet,  balancesheetequity,  cashflow  and
       incomestatement.  When you need more control, then use balance.

   balance features
       Here's a quick overview of the balance  command's  features,  followed  by  more  detailed
       descriptions and examples.  Many of these work with the higher-level commands as well.

       balance can show..

       • accounts as a list (-l) or a tree (-t)

       • optionally depth-limited (-[1-9])

       • sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount

       ..and their..

       • balance changes (the default)

       • or actual and planned balance changes (--budget)

       • or value of balance changes (-V)

       • or change of balance values (--valuechange)

       • or unrealised capital gain/loss (--gain)

       • or postings count (--count)

       ..in..

       • one time period (the whole journal period by default)

       • or multiple periods (-D, -W, -M, -Q, -Y, -p INTERVAL)

       ..either..

       • per period (the default)

       • or accumulated since report start date (--cumulative)

       • or accumulated since account creation (--historical/-H)

       ..possibly converted to..

       • cost (--value=cost[,COMM]/--cost/-B)

       • or market value, as of transaction dates (--value=then[,COMM])

       • or at period ends (--value=end[,COMM])

       • or now (--value=now)

       • or at some other date (--value=YYYY-MM-DD)

       ..with..

       • totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign (--invert)

       • rows and columns swapped (--transpose)

       • another field used as account name (--pivot)

       • custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) (--format)

       • commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines (--layout)

       This  command  supports  the  output  destination  and  output format options, with output
       formats txt, csv, json, and (multi-period reports only:) html.  In txt output in a colour-
       supporting terminal, negative amounts are shown in red.

       The  --related/-r  flag shows the balance of the other postings in the transactions of the
       postings which would normally be shown.

   Simple balance report
       With no arguments, balance shows a list of all accounts and their change of balance -  ie,
       the  sum  of  posting amounts, both inflows and outflows - during the entire period of the
       journal.  ("Simple" here means just one column of numbers, covering a single period.   You
       can also have multi-period reports, described later.)

       For  real-world  accounts,  these numbers will normally be their end balance at the end of
       the journal period; more on this below.

       Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then alphabetically by account  name.
       For instance (using examples/sample.journal):

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal
                                $1  assets:bank:saving
                               $-2  assets:cash
                                $1  expenses:food
                                $1  expenses:supplies
                               $-1  income:gifts
                               $-1  income:salary
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                 0

       Accounts  with  a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree mode - see below) are
       hidden by default.  Use -E/--empty to show them (revealing assets:bank:checking here):

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal  -E
                                 0  assets:bank:checking
                                $1  assets:bank:saving
                               $-2  assets:cash
                                $1  expenses:food
                                $1  expenses:supplies
                               $-1  income:gifts
                               $-1  income:salary
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                 0

       The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the  last  line,  unless  -N/--no-total  is
       used.

   Balance report line format
       For  single-period  balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you can use --format
       FMT to customise the format and content of each line.  Eg:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)"
                            assets          $-1
                       bank:saving           $1
                              cash          $-2
                          expenses           $2
                              food           $1
                          supplies           $1
                            income          $-2
                             gifts          $-1
                            salary          $-1
                 liabilities:debts           $1
              ---------------------------------
                                              0

       The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each account/balance  pair.   It
       may contain any suitable text, with data fields interpolated like so:

       %[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME)

       • MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional)

       • MAX truncates at this width (optional)

       • FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of:

         • depth_spacer  -  a  number  of  spaces  equal  to  the  account's  depth, or if MIN is
           specified, MIN * depth spaces.

         • account - the account's name

         • total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified

       Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control  how  multi-commodity  amounts  are
       rendered:

       • %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default)

       • %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned

       • %, - render on one line, comma-separated

       There  are  some  quirks.   Eg  in  one-line  mode, %(depth_spacer) has no effect, instead
       %(account) has indentation built in.   Experimentation  may  be  needed  to  get  pleasing
       results.

       Some example formats:

       • %(total) - the account's total

       • %-20.20(account)  -  the  account's  name,  left  justified, padded to 20 characters and
         clipped at 20 characters

       • %,%-50(account)  %25(total) - account name padded to 50 characters, total padded  to  20
         characters, with multiple commodities rendered on one line

       • %20(total)   %2(depth_spacer)%-(account)  -  the  default  format  for the single-column
         balance report

   Filtered balance report
       You can show fewer accounts, a different time period,  totals  from  cleared  transactions
       only, etc.  by using query arguments or options to limit the postings being matched.  Eg:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806
                               $-2  assets:cash
              --------------------
                               $-2

   List or tree mode
       By  default,  or  with  -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat list with their full names
       visible, as in the examples above.

       With -t/--tree, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts'  "leaf"  names  indented
       below their parent:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance
                               $-1  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-2    cash
                                $2  expenses
                                $1    food
                                $1    supplies
                               $-2  income
                               $-1    gifts
                               $-1    salary
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                 0

       Notes:

       • "Boring"  accounts  are  combined  with their subaccount for more compact output, unless
         --no-elide is used.  Boring  accounts  have  no  balance  of  their  own  and  just  one
         subaccount (eg assets:bank and liabilities above).

       • All  balances  shown  are  "inclusive",  ie including the balances from all subaccounts.
         Note this means some repetition in the output, which requires explanation  when  sharing
         reports with non-plaintextaccounting-users.  A tree mode report's final total is the sum
         of the top-level balances shown, not of all the balances shown.

       • Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is sorted separately.

   Depth limiting
       With a depth:NUM query, or --depth NUM option, or just -NUM (eg: -3) balance reports  will
       show  accounts  only  to  the specified depth, hiding the deeper subaccounts.  This can be
       useful for getting an overview without too much detail.

       Account balances  at  the  depth  limit  always  include  the  balances  from  any  deeper
       subaccounts (even in list mode).  Eg, limiting to depth 1:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1
                               $-1  assets
                                $2  expenses
                               $-2  income
                                $1  liabilities
              --------------------
                                 0

   Dropping top-level accounts
       You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using --drop NUM.  This can be
       useful for hiding repetitive top-level account names:

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1
                                $1  food
                                $1  supplies
              --------------------
                                $2

   Showing declared accounts
       With --declared, accounts which have been declared  with  an  account  directive  will  be
       included  in the balance report, even if they have no transactions.  (Since they will have
       a zero balance, you will also need -E/--empty to see them.)

       More precisely, leaf declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will be included, since those
       are usually the more useful in reports.

       The  idea  of  this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance report, even when you
       don't have transactions in all of your declared accounts yet.

   Sorting by amount
       With -S/--sort-amount, accounts with the largest (most positive) balances are shown first.
       Eg:  hledger  bal  expenses -MAS shows your biggest averaged monthly expenses first.  When
       more than one commodity is present, they will be sorted  by  the  alphabetically  earliest
       commodity  first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a commodity,
       it is treated as 0).

       Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however,  so  -S  shows  these  in
       reverse order.  To work around this, you can add --invert to flip the signs.  (Or, use one
       of  the  higher-level  reports,  which  flip  the   sign   automatically.    Eg:   hledger
       incomestatement -MAS).

   Percentages
       With  -%/--percent, balance reports show each account's value expressed as a percentage of
       the (column) total.

       Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the  amounts  in  a  column  have  mixed
       signs.  In this case, make a separate report for each sign, eg:

              $ hledger bal -% amt:`>0`
              $ hledger bal -% amt:`<0`

       Similarly,  if  the  amounts  in  a  column  have  mixed  commodities, convert them to one
       commodity with -B, -V, -X or --value, or make a separate report for each commodity:

              $ hledger bal -% cur:\\$
              $ hledger bal -% cur:€

   Multi-period balance report
       With a report interval (set by the -D/--daily, -W/--weekly, -M/--monthly,  -Q/--quarterly,
       -Y/--yearly,   or  -p/--period  flag),  balance  shows  a  tabular  report,  with  columns
       representing successive time periods (and a title):

              $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E
              Balance changes in 2008:

                                 ||  2008q1  2008q2  2008q3  2008q4
              ===================++=================================
               expenses:food     ||       0      $1       0       0
               expenses:supplies ||       0      $1       0       0
               income:gifts      ||       0     $-1       0       0
               income:salary     ||     $-1       0       0       0
              -------------------++---------------------------------
                                 ||     $-1      $1       0       0

       Notes:

       • The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if  necessary,  to  fully  encompass  the
         displayed  subperiods  (so  that the first and last subperiods have the same duration as
         the others).

       • Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing  all  zeroes  are  not  shown,  unless
         -E/--empty is used.

       • Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless -E/--empty is used.

       • Amounts  with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless --no-elide is used.
         (experimental)

       • Average and/or total columns can be  added  with  the  -A/--average  and  -T/--row-total
         flags.

       • The --transpose flag can be used to exchange rows and columns.

       • The  --pivot  FIELD  option  causes a different transaction field to be used as "account
         name".  See PIVOTING.

       Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy viewing in  the  terminal.
       Here are some ways to handle that:

       • Hide the totals row with -N/--no-total

       • Convert to a single currency with -V

       • Maximize the terminal window

       • Reduce the terminal's font size

       • View with a pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less -RS

       • Output  as  CSV  and use a CSV viewer like visidata (hledger bal -D -O csv | vd -f csv),
         Emacs' csv-mode (M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a), or a spreadsheet (hledger bal -D  -o  a.csv  &&
         open a.csv)

       • Output as HTML and view with a browser: hledger bal -D -o a.html && open a.html

   Balance change, end balance
       It's  important  to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in balance reports.  Here
       is some terminology we use:

       A balance change is the net amount added to, or  removed  from,  an  account  during  some
       period.

       An end balance is the amount accumulated in an account as of some date (and some time, but
       hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day  in  your  timezone).   It  is  the  sum  of
       previous balance changes.

       We  call  it a historical end balance if it includes all balance changes since the account
       was created.  For a real world account, this means it will match the "historical  record",
       eg the balances reported in your bank statements or bank web UI.  (If they are correct!)

       In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing revenues and expenses,
       and historical end balances are what you want to see when reviewing or reconciling  asset,
       liability and equity accounts.

       balance shows balance changes by default.  To see accurate historical end balances:

       1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" transaction (a transfer
          from equity to the account), unless the journal covers the account's full lifetime.

       2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in  the  report,  by  not  specifying  a
          report  start date, or by using the -H/--historical flag.  (-H causes report start date
          to be ignored when summing postings.)

   Balance report types
       The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how to control  what  it
       reports.   If  the  following  seems  complicated,  don't  worry  -  this  is for advanced
       reporting, and it does take time and experimentation to get familiar with all  the  report
       modes.

       There are three important option groups:

       hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] ...

   Calculation type
       The basic calculation to perform for each table cell.  It is one of:

       • --sum : sum the posting amounts (default)

       • --budget   :  sum  the  amounts,  but  also  show  the  budget  goal  amount  (for  each
         account/period)

       • --valuechange : show the change in  period-end  historical  balance  values  (caused  by
         deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price fluctuations)

       • --gain  :  show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued balance minus each
         amount's original cost)

       • --count : show the count of postings

   Accumulation type
       How amounts should accumulate across report periods.  Another way to say  it:  which  time
       period's postings should contribute to each cell's calculation.  It is one of:

       • --change  :  calculate  with  postings  from  column  start to column end, ie "just this
         column".   Typically   used   to   see   revenues/expenses.    (default   for   balance,
         incomestatement)

       • --cumulative  :  calculate  with  postings from report start to column end, ie "previous
         columns plus this column".   Typically  used  to  show  changes  accumulated  since  the
         report's start date.  Not often used.

       • --historical/-H  :  calculate  with  postings  from journal start to column end, ie "all
         postings from before report start date until this column's end".  Typically used to  see
         historical  end  balances  of  assets/liabilities/equity.   (default  for  balancesheet,
         balancesheetequity, cashflow)

   Valuation type
       Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any,  before  displaying  the
       report.  It is one of:

       • no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (default)

       • --value=cost[,COMM] : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to some other commodity)

       • --value=then[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on transaction dates

       • --value=end[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on period end date(s)
       (default with --valuechange, --gain)

       • --value=now[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on today's date

       • --value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on another date

       or one of the equivalent simpler flags:

       • -B/--cost  :  like --value=cost (though, note --cost and --value are independent options
         which can both be used at once)

       • -V/--market : like --value=end

       • -X COMM/--exchange COMM : like --value=end,COMM

       See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these.

   Combining balance report types
       Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, but if you find  any
       that seem wrong or misleading, let us know.  The following restrictions are applied:

       • --valuechange implies --value=end

       • --valuechange     makes     --change     the     default     when    used    with    the
         balancesheet/balancesheetequity commands

       • --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T

       For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and valuation show:

       Valuation:>      no valuation       --value= then       --value= end      --value= YYYY-
       Accumulation:v                                                            MM-DD /now
       ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       --change         change in period   sum  of  posting-   period-end        DATE-value  of
                                           date       market   value of change   change      in
                                           values in period    in period         period
       --cumulative     change      from   sum  of  posting-   period-end        DATE-value  of
                        report start  to   date       market   value of change   change    from
                        period end         values       from   from     report   report   start
                                           report  start  to   start to period   to period end
                                           period end          end
       --historical     change      from   sum  of  posting-   period-end        DATE-value  of
       /-H              journal start to   date       market   value of change   change    from
                        period       end   values       from   from    journal   journal  start
                        (historical  end   journal start  to   start to period   to period end
                        balance)           period end          end

   Budget report
       The --budget report type activates extra columns showing any budget goals for each account
       and  period.   The  budget goals are defined by periodic transactions.  This is useful for
       comparing planned and actual income, expenses, time usage, etc.

       For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the  common  expense  categories  to
       construct a minimal monthly budget:

              ;; Budget
              ~ monthly
                income  $2000
                expenses:food    $400
                expenses:bus     $50
                expenses:movies  $30
                assets:bank:checking

              ;; Two months worth of expenses
              2017-11-01
                income  $1950
                expenses:food    $396
                expenses:bus     $49
                expenses:movies  $30
                expenses:supplies  $20
                assets:bank:checking

              2017-12-01
                income  $2100
                expenses:food    $412
                expenses:bus     $53
                expenses:gifts   $100
                assets:bank:checking

       You can now see a monthly budget report:

              $ hledger balance -M --budget
              Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31:

                                    ||                      Nov                       Dec
              ======================++====================================================
               assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
               assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
               assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
               expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]    $565 [ 118% of   $480]
               expenses:bus         ||    $49 [  98% of    $50]     $53 [ 106% of    $50]
               expenses:food        ||   $396 [  99% of   $400]    $412 [ 103% of   $400]
               expenses:movies      ||    $30 [ 100% of    $30]       0 [   0% of    $30]
               income               ||  $1950 [  98% of  $2000]   $2100 [ 105% of  $2000]
              ----------------------++----------------------------------------------------
                                    ||      0 [              0]       0 [              0]

       This is different from a normal balance report in several ways.  Currently:

       • Accounts with budget goals during the report period, and their parents, are shown.

       • Their subaccounts are not shown (regardless of the depth setting).

       • Accounts without budget goals, if any, are aggregated and shown as "<unbudgeted>".

       • Amounts are always inclusive (subaccount-including), even in list mode.

       • After  each  actual amount, the corresponding goal amount and percentage of goal reached
         are also shown, in square brackets.

       This means that the numbers displayed will not always add  up!   Eg  above,  the  expenses
       actual  amount  includes  the  gifts and supplies transactions, but the expenses:gifts and
       expenses:supplies accounts are not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared.

       This can be confusing.  When you need to make things clearer,  use  the  -E/--empty  flag,
       which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted ones, giving the full picture.  Eg:

              $ hledger balance -M --budget --empty
              Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31:

                                    ||                      Nov                       Dec
              ======================++====================================================
               assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
               assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
               assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
               expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]    $565 [ 118% of   $480]
               expenses:bus         ||    $49 [  98% of    $50]     $53 [ 106% of    $50]
               expenses:food        ||   $396 [  99% of   $400]    $412 [ 103% of   $400]
               expenses:gifts       ||      0                      $100
               expenses:movies      ||    $30 [ 100% of    $30]       0 [   0% of    $30]
               expenses:supplies    ||    $20                         0
               income               ||  $1950 [  98% of  $2000]   $2100 [ 105% of  $2000]
              ----------------------++----------------------------------------------------
                                    ||      0 [              0]       0 [              0]

       You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with --cumulative:

              $ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative
              Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31:

                                    ||                      Nov                       Dec
              ======================++====================================================
               assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960]
               assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960]
               assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960]
               expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]   $1060 [ 110% of   $960]
               expenses:bus         ||    $49 [  98% of    $50]    $102 [ 102% of   $100]
               expenses:food        ||   $396 [  99% of   $400]    $808 [ 101% of   $800]
               expenses:movies      ||    $30 [ 100% of    $30]     $30 [  50% of    $60]
               income               ||  $1950 [  98% of  $2000]   $4050 [ 101% of  $4000]
              ----------------------++----------------------------------------------------
                                    ||      0 [              0]       0 [              0]

       It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses

              hledger bal -M --budget expenses

       or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types):

              hledger bal -M --budget type:rx

       It's  also  common  to  limit  or  convert  them to a single currency (cur:COMM or -X COMM
       [--infer-market-prices]).  If showing multiple currencies, --layout bare or --layout  tall
       can help.

       For more examples and notes, see Budgeting.

   Budget report start date
       This  might  be  a  bug,  but  for  now:  when  making budget reports, it's a good idea to
       explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of a reporting period,  because  a
       periodic  rule  like ~ monthly generates its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if
       your journal has no regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start  date  could
       exclude  that  budget  goal, which can be a little surprising.  Eg here the default report
       period is just the day of 2020-01-15:

              ~ monthly in 2020
                (expenses:food)  $500

              2020-01-15
                expenses:food    $400
                assets:checking

              $ hledger bal expenses --budget
              Budget performance in 2020-01-15:

                            || 2020-01-15
              ==============++============
               <unbudgeted> ||       $400
              --------------++------------
                            ||       $400

       To avoid this, specify the budget report's period,  or  at  least  the  start  date,  with
       -b/-e/-p/date:, to ensure it includes the budget goal transactions (periodic transactions)
       that you want.  Eg, adding -b 2020/1/1 to the above:

              $ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1
              Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15:

                             || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15
              ===============++========================
               expenses:food ||     $400 [80% of $500]
              ---------------++------------------------
                             ||     $400 [80% of $500]

   Budgets and subaccounts
       You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy.  If you have budgets on both
       parent  account  and some of its children, then budget(s) of the child account(s) would be
       added to the budget of their parent, much like account balances behave.

       In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget  to  any  account,  all  its
       parents would have budget as well.

       To illustrate this, consider the following budget:

              ~ monthly from 2019/01
                  expenses:personal             $1,000.00
                  expenses:personal:electronics    $100.00
                  liabilities

       With  this,  monthly  budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and budget for personal
       expenses  is  an  additional  $1000,  which  implicitly  means  that   budget   for   both
       expenses:personal and expenses is $1100.

       Transactions in expenses:personal:electronics will be counted both towards its $100 budget
       and  $1100  of  expenses:personal  ,  and  transactions  in  any   other   subaccount   of
       expenses:personal would be counted towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal.

       For example, let's consider these transactions:

              ~ monthly from 2019/01
                  expenses:personal             $1,000.00
                  expenses:personal:electronics    $100.00
                  liabilities

              2019/01/01 Google home hub
                  expenses:personal:electronics          $90.00
                  liabilities                           $-90.00

              2019/01/02 Phone screen protector
                  expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades          $10.00
                  liabilities

              2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket
                  expenses:personal:train tickets       $153.00
                  liabilities

              2019/01/03 Flowers
                  expenses:personal          $30.00
                  liabilities

       As  you  can  see,  we  have  transactions  in  expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades and
       expenses:personal:train tickets, and since both of these accounts are  without  explicitly
       defined    budget,    these   transactions   would   be   counted   towards   budgets   of
       expenses:personal:electronics and expenses:personal accordingly:

              $ hledger balance --budget -M
              Budget performance in 2019/01:

                                             ||                           Jan
              ===============================++===============================
               expenses                      ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal             ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal:electronics ||  $100.00 [ 100% of   $100.00]
               liabilities                   || $-283.00 [  26% of $-1100.00]
              -------------------------------++-------------------------------
                                             ||        0 [                 0]

       And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and consumption:

              $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty
              Budget performance in 2019/01:

                                                      ||                           Jan
              ========================================++===============================
               expenses                               ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal                      ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
               expenses:personal:electronics          ||  $100.00 [ 100% of   $100.00]
               expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades ||   $10.00
               expenses:personal:train tickets        ||  $153.00
               liabilities                            || $-283.00 [  26% of $-1100.00]
              ----------------------------------------++-------------------------------
                                                      ||        0 [                 0]

   Selecting budget goals
       The  budget  report  evaluates  periodic  transaction  rules  to  generate  special  "goal
       transactions",  which generate the goal amounts for each account in each report subperiod.
       When  troubleshooting,  you  can  use  print  --forecast  to  show  these  as   forecasted
       transactions:

              $ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated

       By  default,  the  budget report uses all available periodic transaction rules to generate
       goals.  This includes rules with a different report interval from your report.  Eg if  you
       have  daily,  weekly and monthly periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals
       in a monthly budget report.

       You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to the  --budget  flag.
       --budget=DESCPAT will match all periodic rules whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-
       insensitive substring (not a regular expression or query).  This means you can  give  your
       periodic  rules  descriptions  (remember that two spaces are needed), and then select from
       multiple budgets defined in your journal.

   Budget vs forecast
       hledger --forecast ... and hledger balance --budget ... are separate features, though both
       of  them  use  the  periodic  transaction  rules  defined in the journal, and both of them
       generate temporary  transactions  for  reporting  purposes  ("forecast  transactions"  and
       "budget  goal transactions", respectively).  You can use both features at the same time if
       you want.  Here are some differences between them, as of hledger 1.29:

       CLI:

       • --forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command

       • --budget is a balance command option, usable only with that command.

       Visibility of generated transactions:

       • forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary transactions

       • budget goal transactions are invisible except for  the  goal  amounts  they  produce  in
         --budget reports.

       Periodic transaction rules:

       • --forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules

       • --budget uses all periodic rules (--budget) or a selected subset (--budget=DESCPAT)

       Period of generated transactions:

       • --forecast generates forecast transactions

         • from after the last regular transaction to the end of the report period (--forecast)

         • or, during a specified period (--forecast=PERIODEXPR)

         • possibly further restricted by a period specified in the periodic transaction rule

         • and always restricted within the bounds of the report period

       • --budget generates budget goal transactions

         • throughout the report period

         • possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic transaction rule.

   Data layout
       The --layout option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity amounts and commodity
       symbols, which can  improve  readability.   It  can  also  normalise  the  data  for  easy
       consumption by other programs.  It has four possible values:

       • --layout=wide[,WIDTH]:  commodities  are  shown  on  a single line, optionally elided to
         WIDTH

       • --layout=tall: each commodity is shown on a separate line

       • --layout=bare: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts are bare numbers

       • --layout=tidy: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, with one row per  data
         value

       Here are the --layout modes supported by each output format; note only CSV output supports
       all of them:

       -      txt   csv   html   json   sql
       ─────────────────────────────────────
       wide   Y     Y     Y
       tall   Y     Y     Y
       bare   Y     Y     Y
       tidy         Y

       Examples:

       • Wide layout.  With many commodities, reports can be very wide:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  ||                                          2012                                                     2013                                             2014                                                      Total
                ==================++====================================================================================================================================================================================================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT  -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT
                ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT  -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT

       • Limited wide layout.  A width limit reduces the width,  but  some  commodities  will  be
         hidden:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  ||                             2012                             2013                   2014                            Total
                ==================++===========================================================================================================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more..  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more..  -11.00 ITOT, 3 more..  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more..
                ------------------++---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more..  70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more..  -11.00 ITOT, 3 more..  70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more..

       • Tall  layout.   Each  commodity  gets  a new line (may be different in each column), and
         account names are repeated:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  ||       2012        2013         2014        Total
                ==================++==================================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT   70.00 GLD  -11.00 ITOT    70.00 GLD
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD  18.00 ITOT  4881.44 USD   17.00 ITOT
                 Assets:US:ETrade ||  12.00 VEA  -98.12 USD    14.00 VEA  5120.50 USD
                 Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT   10.00 VEA   170.00 VHT    36.00 VEA
                 Assets:US:ETrade ||              18.00 VHT                294.00 VHT
                ------------------++--------------------------------------------------
                                  || 10.00 ITOT   70.00 GLD  -11.00 ITOT    70.00 GLD
                                  || 337.18 USD  18.00 ITOT  4881.44 USD   17.00 ITOT
                                  ||  12.00 VEA  -98.12 USD    14.00 VEA  5120.50 USD
                                  || 106.00 VHT   10.00 VEA   170.00 VHT    36.00 VEA
                                  ||              18.00 VHT                294.00 VHT

       • Bare layout.  Commodity symbols are kept in one column,  each  commodity  gets  its  own
         report row, account names are repeated:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare
                Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31:

                                  || Commodity    2012    2013     2014    Total
                ==================++=============================================
                 Assets:US:ETrade || GLD             0   70.00        0    70.00
                 Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT        10.00   18.00   -11.00    17.00
                 Assets:US:ETrade || USD        337.18  -98.12  4881.44  5120.50
                 Assets:US:ETrade || VEA         12.00   10.00    14.00    36.00
                 Assets:US:ETrade || VHT        106.00   18.00   170.00   294.00
                ------------------++---------------------------------------------
                                  || GLD             0   70.00        0    70.00
                                  || ITOT        10.00   18.00   -11.00    17.00
                                  || USD        337.18  -98.12  4881.44  5120.50
                                  || VEA         12.00   10.00    14.00    36.00
                                  || VHT        106.00   18.00   170.00   294.00

       • Bare  layout  also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing data that is easier
         to consume, eg for making charts:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare
                "account","commodity","balance"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00"
                "total","GLD","70.00"
                "total","ITOT","17.00"
                "total","USD","5120.50"
                "total","VEA","36.00"
                "total","VHT","294.00"

       • Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable has its own column and
         each     row     represents     a    single    data    point.     See    https://cran.r-
         project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-data.html for more.  This is  the  easiest
         kind of data for other software to consume.  Here's how it looks:

                $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy
                "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00"
                "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00"

   Useful balance reports
       Some frequently used balance options/reports are:

       • bal -M revenues expenses
       Show revenues/expenses in each month.  Also available as the incomestatement command.

       • bal -M -H assets liabilities
       Show  historical  asset/liability  balances  at  each  month  end.   Also available as the
       balancesheet command.

       • bal -M -H assets liabilities equity
       Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end.  Also available as  the
       balancesheetequity command.

       • bal -M assets not:receivable
       Show changes to liquid assets in each month.  Also available as the cashflow command.

       Also:

       • bal -M expenses -2 -SA
       Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average amount.

       • bal -M --budget expenses
       Show monthly expenses and budget goals.

       • bal -M --valuechange investments
       Show monthly change in market value of investment assets.

       • bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA [--invert]
       Show top gainers [or losers] last week

   balancesheet
       (bs)

       This  command  displays  a  balance sheet, showing historical ending balances of asset and
       liability accounts.  (To see equity as well, use the balancesheetequity command.)  Amounts
       are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

       This  report  shows  accounts declared with the Asset, Cash or Liability type (see account
       types).  Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows top-level accounts named  asset  or
       liability (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts.

       Example:

              $ hledger balancesheet
              Balance Sheet

              Assets:
                               $-1  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-2    cash
              --------------------
                               $-1

              Liabilities:
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                $1

              Total:
              --------------------
                                 0

       This  command  is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and supports many of that
       command's features, such as multi-period reports.  It is similar  to  hledger  balance  -H
       assets  liabilities,  but  with  smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with
       their sign flipped.

       This command also supports the output destination and output  format  options  The  output
       formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

   balancesheetequity
       (bse)

       This  command  displays  a  balance  sheet,  showing  historical ending balances of asset,
       liability and equity accounts.  Amounts  are  shown  with  normal  positive  sign,  as  in
       conventional financial statements.

       This  report  shows  accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or Equity type (see
       account types).  Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows  top-level  accounts  named
       asset, liability or equity (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts.

       Example:

              $ hledger balancesheetequity
              Balance Sheet With Equity

              Assets:
                               $-2  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-3    cash
              --------------------
                               $-2

              Liabilities:
                                $1  liabilities:debts
              --------------------
                                $1

              Equity:
                        $1  equity:owner
              --------------------
                        $1

              Total:
              --------------------
                                 0

       This  command  is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and supports many of that
       command's features, such as multi-period reports.  It is similar  to  hledger  balance  -H
       assets  liabilities  equity,  but  with  smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity
       displayed with their sign flipped.

       This command also supports the output destination and output  format  options  The  output
       formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

   cashflow
       (cf)

       This  command  displays  a  cashflow statement, showing the inflows and outflows affecting
       "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets.  Amounts are shown  with  normal  positive
       sign, as in conventional financial statements.

       This report shows accounts declared with the Cash type (see account types).  Or if no such
       accounts are declared, it shows accounts

       • under a top-level account named asset (case insensitive, plural allowed)

       • whose name contains some variation of cash, bank, checking or saving.

       More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular expression:

       ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)

       and their subaccounts.

       An example cashflow report:

              $ hledger cashflow
              Cashflow Statement

              Cash flows:
                               $-1  assets
                                $1    bank:saving
                               $-2    cash
              --------------------
                               $-1

              Total:
              --------------------
                               $-1

       This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and supports many  of  that
       command's features, such as multi-period reports.  It is similar to hledger balance assets
       not:fixed not:investment not:receivable, but with smarter account detection.

       This command also supports the output destination and output  format  options  The  output
       formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

   check
       Check for various kinds of errors in your data.

       hledger  provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent problems in your data.
       Some of these are run automatically; or, you can use this check command  to  run  them  on
       demand,  with  no  output  and a zero exit code if all is well.  Specify their names (or a
       prefix) as argument(s).

       Some examples:

              hledger check      # basic checks
              hledger check -s   # basic + strict checks
              hledger check ordereddates payees  # basic + two other checks

       If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger  to  run  these  checks,
       providing instant feedback as you edit the journal.

       Here are the checks currently available:

   Basic checks
       These  checks  are  always  run automatically, by (almost) all hledger commands, including
       check:

       • parseable - data files are well-formed and can be successfully parsed

       • balancedwithautoconversion - all transactions are balanced,  inferring  missing  amounts
         where  necessary,  and  possibly  converting  commodities  using costs or automatically-
         inferred costs

       • assertions - all balance assertions in the journal are  passing.   (This  check  can  be
         disabled with -I/--ignore-assertions.)

   Strict checks
       These additional checks are run when the -s/--strict (strict mode) flag is used.  Or, they
       can be run by giving their names as arguments to check:

       • accounts - all account names used by transactions have been declared

       • commodities - all commodity symbols used have been declared

       • balancednoautoconversion - transactions are balanced, possibly using explicit costs  but
         not inferred ones

   Other checks
       These  checks  can be run only by giving their names as arguments to check.  They are more
       specialised and not desirable for everyone, therefore optional:

       • ordereddates - transactions are ordered by date within each file

       • payees - all payees used by transactions have been declared

       • recentassertions - all accounts with balance assertions have a balance assertion no more
         than 7 days before their latest posting

       • tags - all tags used by transactions have been declared

       • uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique

   Custom checks
       A    few   more   checks   are   are   available   as   separate   add-on   commands,   in
       https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin:

       • hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / (a forward  slash)  exist  as  file
         paths

       • hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are passing

       You  could  make  similar  scripts  to  perform  your own custom checks.  See: Cookbook ->
       Scripting.

   More about specific checks
       hledger check recentassertions will complain if any balance-asserted account does not have
       a  balance  assertion  within  7 days before its latest posting.  This aims to prevent the
       situation where you are regularly updating your journal,  but  forgetting  to  check  your
       balances against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of data to find
       an error.  It assumes that adding a balance assertion requires/reminds you  to  check  the
       real-world  balance.   That  may  not be true if you auto-generate balance assertions from
       bank data; in that case, I recommend  to  import  transactions  uncleared,  then  use  the
       manual-review-and-mark-cleared  phase as a reminder to check the latest assertions against
       real-world balances.

   close
       (equity)

       Generate transactions which transfer account  balances  to  and/or  from  another  account
       (typically  equity).   This can be useful for migrating balances to a new journal file, or
       for merging earnings into equity at end of accounting period.

       By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts (asset, liability, equity
       accounts;  this requires account types to be configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the
       accounts matched by that.

       (experimental)

       This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common use cases:

       1. With --close (default), it prints a "closing balances" transaction that zeroes out  ALE
          (asset,  liability,  equity)  accounts  by  default  (this requires account types to be
          inferred or declared); or, the accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY arguments.

       2. With --open, it prints an opposite "opening balances" transaction that  restores  those
          balances from zero.  This is similar to Ledger's equity command.

       3. With  --migrate,  it  prints  both  the  closing and opening transactions.  This is the
          preferred way to migrate balances to a new file: run hledger close --migrate,  add  the
          closing  transaction at the end of the old file, and add the opening transaction at the
          start of the new file.  The matching closing/opening  transactions  cancel  each  other
          out, preserving correct balances during multi-file reporting.

       4. With --retain, it prints a "retain earnings" transaction that transfers RX (revenue and
          expense) balances to equity:retained earnings.  Businesses traditionally do this at the
          end of each accounting period; it is less necessary with computer-based accounting, but
          it could still be useful if you want to see the accounting equation (A=L+E) satisfied.

       In all modes, the defaults can be overridden:

       • the transaction descriptions can be changed with --close-desc=DESC and --open-desc=DESC

       • the account to transfer to/from  can  be  changed  with  --close-acct=ACCT  and  --open-
         acct=ACCT

       • the  accounts  to  be  closed/opened  can  be  changed  with  ACCTQUERY  (account  query
         arguments).

       • the closing/opening dates can be changed with -e DATE (a report end date)

       By default just one  destination/source  posting  will  be  used,  with  its  amount  left
       implicit.   With  --x/--explicit,  the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it involves
       multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for each of  them  (similar  to
       print -x).

       With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings for each cost.  This
       is currently the best way to view investment lots.  If you have many  currency  conversion
       or investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries.

       With --interleaved, each individual transfer is shown with source and destination postings
       next to each other.  This could be useful for troubleshooting.

       The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, whichever is later.  You
       can  change  this  by  specifying  a  report end date with -e.  The last day of the report
       period will be the closing date, eg -e 2024 means "close on 2023-12-31".  The opening date
       is always the day after the closing date.

   close and balance assertions
       Balance  assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have been reset to zero
       (and then restored to their previous balances, if there is an opening transaction).

       These provide useful error checking, but you can  ignore  them  temporarily  with  -I,  or
       remove them if you prefer.

       You  probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or realness (-C, -R, status:),
       or generating postings (--auto), with this command, since  the  balance  assertions  would
       depend on these.

       Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the balance assertions:

              2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january
                  expenses:food          5
                  assets:bank:checking  -5  ; date: 2023-01-02

       To  solve  that  you  can  transfer  the  money to and from a temporary account, in effect
       splitting the multi-day transaction into two single-day transactions:

              ; in 2022.journal:
              2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january
                  expenses:food          5
                  equity:pending        -5

              ; in 2023.journal:
              2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared
                  equity:pending         5 = 0
                  assets:bank:checking  -5

   Example: retain earnings
       Record  2022's  revenues/expenses  as  retained  earnings  on  2022-12-31,  appending  the
       generated transaction to the journal:

              $ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal

       Note 2022's income statement will now show only zeroes, because revenues and expenses have
       been moved entirely  to  equity.   To  see  them  again,  you  could  exclude  the  retain
       transaction:

              $ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings'

   Example: migrate balances to a new file
       Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on 2023-01-01:

              $ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022
              # copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal
              # copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal

       Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced accounting equation.
       (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that case, try adding  --infer-equity.)   To  see
       the end-of-year balances again, you could exclude the closing transaction:

              $ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances'

   Example: excluding closing/opening transactions
       When  combining  many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening transactions cause
       some noise in transaction-oriented reports like print and register.  You can exclude  them
       as  shown  above,  but not:desc:... is not ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions;
       also you will want to avoid excluding the very first opening transaction, which  could  be
       awkward.  Here is one alternative, using tags:

       Add clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except the first, like this:

              ; 2021.journal
              2021-06-01 first opening balances
              ...
              2021-12-31 closing balances  ; clopen:2022
              ...

              ; 2022.journal
              2022-01-01 opening balances  ; clopen:2022
              ...
              2022-12-31 closing balances  ; clopen:2023
              ...

              ; 2023.journal
              2023-01-01 opening balances  ; clopen:2023
              ...

       Now, assuming a combined journal like:

              ; all.journal
              include 2021.journal
              include 2022.journal
              include 2023.journal

       The clopen: tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction.  To show a clean multi-
       year checking register:

              $ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen

       And the year values allow more precision.  To show 2022's year-end balance sheet:

              $ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023

   codes
       List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed.

       This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in the order  transactions
       were parsed.  The transaction code is an optional value written in parentheses between the
       date and description, often used to store a cheque number, order number or similar.

       Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty codes will not be  shown
       by default.  With the -E/--empty flag, they will be printed as blank lines.

       You can add a query to select a subset of transactions.

       Examples:

              2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket
               Food       $5.00
               Checking

              2022/1/2 (124) Post Office
               Postage    $8.32
               Checking

              2022/1/3 Supermarket
               Food      $11.23
               Checking

              2022/1/4 (126) Post Office
               Postage    $3.21
               Checking

              $ hledger codes
              123
              124
              126

              $ hledger codes -E
              123
              124

              126

   commodities
       List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal.

   demo
       Play demos of hledger usage in the terminal, if asciinema is installed.

       Run  this command with no argument to list the demos.  To play a demo, write its number or
       a prefix or substring of its title.  Tips:

       Make your terminal window large enough to see the demo clearly.

       Use the -s/--speed SPEED option to set your preferred playback speed, eg -s4 to play at 4x
       original speed or -s.5 to play at half speed.  The default speed is 2x.

       Other  asciinema  options can be added following a double dash, eg -- -i.1 to limit pauses
       or -- -h to list asciinema's other options.

       During playback, several keys are available: SPACE to pause/unpause, .   to  step  forward
       (while paused), CTRL-c quit.

       Examples:

              $ hledger demo               # list available demos
              $ hledger demo 1             # play the first demo at default speed (2x)
              $ hledger demo install -s4   # play the "install" demo at 4x speed

   descriptions
       List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions.

       This  command  lists  the  unique  descriptions that appear in transactions, in alphabetic
       order.  You can add a query to select a subset of transactions.

       Example:

              $ hledger descriptions
              Store Name
              Gas Station | Petrol
              Person A

   diff
       Compares  a  particular  account's  transactions  in  two  input  files.   It  shows   any
       transactions to this account which are in one file but not in the other.

       More  precisely,  for  each  posting affecting this account in either file, it looks for a
       corresponding posting in the other file which posts the same amount to  the  same  account
       (ignoring  date,  description,  etc.)   Since postings not transactions are compared, this
       also works when multiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry.

       This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from your bank  (eg  as
       CSV data).  When hledger and your bank disagree about the account balance, you can compare
       the bank data with your journal to find out the cause.

       Examples:

              $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro
              These transactions are in the first file only:

              2014/01/01 Opening Balances
                  assets:bank:giro              EUR ...
                  ...
                  equity:opening balances       EUR -...

              These transactions are in the second file only:

   files
       List all files included in the journal.  With a REGEX argument, only file  names  matching
       the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown.

   help
       Show  the  hledger  user manual in the terminal, with info, man, or a pager.  With a TOPIC
       argument, open it at that topic if possible.  TOPIC can be any heading in the manual, or a
       heading  prefix,  case insensitive.  Eg: commands, print, forecast, journal, amount, "auto
       postings".

       This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger version.  It can be  useful
       when  offline,  or  when you prefer the terminal to a web browser, or when the appropriate
       hledger manual or viewing tools are not installed on your system.

       By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this order):  info,  man,
       $PAGER, less, more.  You can force the use of info, man, or a pager with the -i, -m, or -p
       flags, If no viewer can be found, or the command is run non-interactively, it just  prints
       the manual to stdout.

       If  using  info, note that version 6 or greater is needed for TOPIC lookup.  If you are on
       mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should consider installing a newer version, eg with
       brew install texinfo (#1770).

       Examples

              $ hledger help --help      # show how the help command works
              $ hledger help             # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER
              $ hledger help journal     # show the journal topic in the hledger manual
              $ hledger help -m journal  # show it with man, even if info is installed

   import
       Read  new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to the journal.  Or
       with --dry-run, just print the transactions that would be added.  Or with --catchup,  just
       mark all of the FILEs' transactions as imported, without actually importing any.

       This  command  may  append  new  transactions to the main journal file (which should be in
       journal format).  Existing transactions are not changed.  This is one of the  few  hledger
       commands that writes to the journal file (see also add).

       Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an output file, and will be
       modified, though only by appending (existing data will not be changed).  The  input  files
       are  specified  as arguments, so to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you
       will run hledger import bank.csv or perhaps hledger import *.csv.

       Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files  are  the  most  common  import
       source, and these docs focus on that case.

   Deduplication
       As a convenience import does deduplication while reading transactions.  This does not mean
       "ignore transactions that look the same", but rather "ignore transactions that  have  been
       seen before".  This is intended for when you are periodically importing foreign data which
       may contain already-imported transactions.  So eg, if every  day  you  download  bank  CSV
       files  containing  redundant data, you can safely run hledger import bank.csv and only new
       transactions will be imported.  (import is idempotent.)

       Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come  with  unique  identifiers,
       hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming that:

       1. new items always have the newest dates

       2. item dates do not change across reads

       3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order across reads.

       These  are  often  true  of CSV files representing transactions, or true enough so that it
       works pretty well in practice.  1 is important, but violations of 2 and 3 amongst the  old
       transactions  won't  matter (and if you import often, the new transactions will be few, so
       less likely to be the ones affected).

       hledger remembers the latest date  processed  in  each  input  file  by  saving  a  hidden
       ".latest"  state  file  in  the same directory.  Eg when reading finance/bank.csv, it will
       look for and update the finance/.latest.bank.csv state file.  The format is simple: one or
       more  lines  containing  the  same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I have processed
       transactions up to this date, and this many of them on that date." Normally you won't  see
       or manipulate these state files yourself.  But if needed, you can delete them to reset the
       state (making all transactions "new"), or you can  construct  them  to  "catch  up"  to  a
       certain date.

       Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by print --new, but this
       is less often used.

   Import testing
       With --dry-run, the transactions that will  be  imported  are  printed  to  the  terminal,
       without  updating  your  journal or state files.  The output is valid journal format, like
       the print command, so you can re-parse it.  Eg, to see any importable  transactions  which
       CSV rules have not categorised:

              $ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown

       or (live updating):

              $ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown'

       Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently possible for some .latest
       files to be updated successfully, while the actual import fails because of  a  problem  in
       one  of  the files, leaving them out of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed).
       To prevent this, do a --dry-run first and fix any problems before the real import.

   Importing balance assignments
       Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit (like hledger  print
       -x).   This  means  that any balance assignments in imported files must be evaluated; but,
       imported files don't get to see the main file's account balances.  As a result,  importing
       entries  with  balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances and
       not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect  posting  amounts.   To  avoid  this
       problem, use print instead of import:

              $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE

       (If  you  think  import  should leave amounts implicit like print does, please test it and
       send a pull request.)

   Commodity display styles
       Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity  styles  (declared
       or inferred) in the main journal file.

   incomestatement
       (is)

       This  command  displays  an  income statement, showing revenues and expenses during one or
       more periods.  Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in  conventional  financial
       statements.

       This  report shows accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type (see account types).
       Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows top-level accounts named revenue  or  income
       or expense (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts.

       Example:

              $ hledger incomestatement
              Income Statement

              Revenues:
                               $-2  income
                               $-1    gifts
                               $-1    salary
              --------------------
                               $-2

              Expenses:
                                $2  expenses
                                $1    food
                                $1    supplies
              --------------------
                                $2

              Total:
              --------------------
                                 0

       This  command  is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and supports many of that
       command's features, such as multi-period  reports.   It  is  similar  to  hledger  balance
       '(revenues|income)'  expenses,  but  with  smarter  account detection, and revenues/income
       displayed with their sign flipped.

       This command also supports the output destination and output  format  options  The  output
       formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

   notes
       List the unique notes that appear in transactions.

       This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in alphabetic order.  You
       can add a query to select a  subset  of  transactions.   The  note  is  the  part  of  the
       transaction description after a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description).

       Example:

              $ hledger notes
              Petrol
              Snacks

   payees
       List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions.

       This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared with payee directives
       (--declared), used in transaction descriptions (--used), or both (the default).

       The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a  |  character  (or  if
       there is no |, the whole description).

       You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions.  This implies --used.

       Example:

              $ hledger payees
              Store Name
              Gas Station
              Person A

   prices
       Print  market  price  directives  from  the journal.  With --infer-market-prices, generate
       additional market prices from costs.  With --infer-reverse-prices,  also  generate  market
       prices  by  inverting known prices.  Prices can be filtered by a query.  Price amounts are
       displayed with their full precision.

   print
       Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date.

       The print command displays full journal entries  (transactions)  from  the  journal  file,
       sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date).

       Amounts  are  shown  mostly  normalised  to  commodity  display style, eg the placement of
       commodity symbols will be consistent.  All of their decimal places are shown,  as  in  the
       original journal entry (with one alteration: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.)

       Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not across all transactions).

       Directives  and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently.  This means the print
       command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it to reformat  your  journal  you  should
       take care to also copy over the directives and file-level comments.

       Eg:

              $ hledger print
              2008/01/01 income
                  assets:bank:checking            $1
                  income:salary                  $-1

              2008/06/01 gift
                  assets:bank:checking            $1
                  income:gifts                   $-1

              2008/06/02 save
                  assets:bank:saving              $1
                  assets:bank:checking           $-1

              2008/06/03 * eat & shop
                  expenses:food                $1
                  expenses:supplies            $1
                  assets:cash                 $-2

              2008/12/31 * pay off
                  liabilities:debts               $1
                  assets:bank:checking           $-1

       print's  output  is  usually  a valid hledger journal, and you can process it again with a
       second hledger command.  This can be useful for certain kinds of search, eg:

              # Show running total of food expenses paid from cash.
              # -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed.
              $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food

       There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable:

       • Valuation affects posting amounts  but  not  balance  assertion  or  balance  assignment
         amounts, potentially causing those to fail.

       • Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts.

       • Account aliases can generate bad account names.

       Normally,  the  journal  entry's  explicit  or  implicit  amount  style is preserved.  For
       example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it  will  not  appear  in  the  output.
       Similarly,  when a cost is implied but not written, it will not appear in the output.  You
       can use the -x/--explicit flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can be useful
       for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and robust against data entry
       errors.  -x is also implied by using any of -B,-V,-X,--value.

       Note, -x/--explicit will cause postings with a multi-commodity  amount  (these  can  arise
       when  a  multi-commodity  transaction  has  an  implicit amount) to be split into multiple
       single-commodity postings, keeping the output parseable.

       With -B/--cost, amounts with costs are converted to cost using that price.   This  can  be
       used for troubleshooting.

       With  -m  DESC/--match=DESC,  print  does  a fuzzy search for one recent transaction whose
       description is most similar to DESC.  DESC should contain at  least  two  characters.   If
       there  is  no similar-enough match, no transaction will be shown and the program exit code
       will be non-zero.

       With --new, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a previous run.  This uses
       the same deduplication system as the import command.  (See import's docs for details.)

       This  command  also  supports  the output destination and output format options The output
       formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) json and sql.

       Here's an example of print's CSV output:

              $ hledger print -Ocsv
              "txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment"
              "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","",""
              "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","",""
              "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","",""
              "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","",""
              "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","",""
              "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","",""
              "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","",""
              "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","",""
              "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","",""
              "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","",""
              "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","",""

       • There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's fields repeated.

       • The "txnidx"  (transaction  index)  field  shows  which  postings  belong  to  the  same
         transaction.   (This  number might change if transactions are reordered within the file,
         files are parsed/included in a different order, etc.)

       • The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and  "amount"  (numeric  quantity)
         fields.

       • The  numeric  amount  is  repeated  in  either  the  "credit"  or  "debit"  column,  for
         convenience.  (Those names are not accurate  in  the  accounting  sense;  it  just  puts
         negative amounts under credit and zero or greater amounts under debit.)

   register
       (reg)

       Show postings and their running total.

       The  register  command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in date order, with
       their running total or running historical balance.  (See also the aregister command, which
       shows matched transactions in a specific account.)

       register  normally  shows  line  per  posting,  but note that multi-commodity amounts will
       occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity).

       It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to  see  that  account's
       activity:

              $ hledger register checking
              2008/01/01 income               assets:bank:checking            $1           $1
              2008/06/01 gift                 assets:bank:checking            $1           $2
              2008/06/02 save                 assets:bank:checking           $-1           $1
              2008/12/31 pay off              assets:bank:checking           $-1            0

       With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead.

       For  performance  reasons,  column  widths  are chosen based on the first 1000 lines; this
       means unusually wide values in later lines can  cause  visual  discontinuities  as  column
       widths  are  adjusted.   If you want to ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time
       and memory, use the --align-all flag.

       The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from  any  undisplayed  prior  postings  to  the
       running  total.   This  is  useful  when  you  want  to  see  only recent activity, with a
       historically accurate running balance:

              $ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical
              2008/06/01 gift                 assets:bank:checking            $1           $2
              2008/06/02 save                 assets:bank:checking           $-1           $1
              2008/12/31 pay off              assets:bank:checking           $-1            0

       The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed.

       The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting  amount  instead  of  the  running
       total  (so,  the final number displayed is the average for the whole report period).  This
       flag implies --empty (see below).  It is affected by --historical.   It  works  best  when
       showing just one account and one commodity.

       The  --related/-r  flag shows the other postings in the transactions of the postings which
       would normally be shown.

       The --invert flag negates all amounts.  For example, it can be used on an  income  account
       where  amounts  are  normally  displayed  as  negative  numbers.  It's also useful to show
       postings on the checking account together with the related account:

              $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking

       With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per interval,  aggregating
       the postings to each account:

              $ hledger register --monthly income
              2008/01                 income:salary                          $-1          $-1
              2008/06                 income:gifts                           $-1          $-2

       Periods  with  no  activity,  and  summary  postings  with a zero amount, are not shown by
       default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them:

              $ hledger register --monthly income -E
              2008/01                 income:salary                          $-1          $-1
              2008/02                                                          0          $-1
              2008/03                                                          0          $-1
              2008/04                                                          0          $-1
              2008/05                                                          0          $-1
              2008/06                 income:gifts                           $-1          $-2
              2008/07                                                          0          $-2
              2008/08                                                          0          $-2
              2008/09                                                          0          $-2
              2008/10                                                          0          $-2
              2008/11                                                          0          $-2
              2008/12                                                          0          $-2

       Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval.  The --depth option helps with this,
       causing subaccounts to be aggregated:

              $ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h
              2008/01                 assets                                  $1           $1
              2008/06                 assets                                 $-1            0
              2008/12                 assets                                 $-1          $-1

       Note  when  using  report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these will be adjusted
       outward if necessary to contain a whole number of intervals.  This ensures that the  first
       and last intervals are full length and comparable to the others in the report.

       With  -m  DESC/--match=DESC,  register  does  a  fuzzy search for one recent posting whose
       description is most similar to DESC.  DESC should contain at  least  two  characters.   If
       there  is no similar-enough match, no posting will be shown and the program exit code will
       be non-zero.

   Custom register output
       register uses the full terminal width by default, except on  windows.   You  can  override
       this  by  setting the COLUMNS environment variable (not a bash shell variable) or by using
       the --width/-w option.

       The description and account columns normally share the space equally (about half of (width
       -  40)  each).   You  can  adjust  this by adding a description width as part of --width's
       argument, comma-separated: --width W,D .  Here's a diagram  (won't  display  correctly  in
       --help):

              <--------------------------------- width (W) ---------------------------------->
              date (10)  description (D)       account (W-41-D)     amount (12)   balance (12)
              DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd  aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  AAAAAAAAAAAA  AAAAAAAAAAAA

       and some examples:

              $ hledger reg                     # use terminal width (or 80 on windows)
              $ hledger reg -w 100              # use width 100
              $ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg         # set with one-time environment variable
              $ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize)
              $ hledger reg -w 100,40           # set overall width 100, description width 40
              $ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40      # use terminal width, & description width 40

       This  command  also  supports  the output destination and output format options The output
       formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) json.

   rewrite
       Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions.  For now the  only
       rewrite available is adding new postings, like print --auto.

       This  is  a  start  at  a  generic  rewriter of transaction entries.  It reads the default
       journal and prints the transactions, like print, but adds one or more  specified  postings
       to  any transactions matching QUERY.  The posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of
       the existing transaction's first posting amount.

       Examples:

              $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33  ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts)  $100'
              $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts)  *-1"'
              $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger

       rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like:

              = ^income amt:<0 date:2017
                (liabilities:tax)  *0.33  ; tax on income
                (reserve:grocery)  *0.25  ; reserve 25% for grocery
                (reserve:)  *0.25  ; reserve 25% for grocery

       Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the  two  spaces  between
       account and amount.

       More:

              $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY]        --add-posting "ACCT  AMTEXPR" ...
              $ hledger rewrite -- ^income        --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33'
              $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts)  *-1"'
              $ hledger rewrite -- ^income        --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency)  *0.25 JPY; diversify'

       Argument  for --add-posting option is a usual posting of transaction with an exception for
       amount specification.  More precisely, you can use '*' (star symbol) before the amount  to
       indicate  that  that  this  is a factor for an amount of original matched posting.  If the
       amount includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be  in  the  new  commodity;
       otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's commodity.

   Re-write rules in a file
       During  the  run  this  tool  will execute so called "Automated Transactions" found in any
       journal it process.  I.e instead of specifying this operations in command line you can put
       them in a journal file.

              $ rewrite-rules.journal

       Make contents look like this:

              = ^income
                  (liabilities:tax)  *.33

              = expenses:gifts
                  budget:gifts  *-1
                  assets:budget  *1

       Note  that  '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in transactions you usually
       write.  It indicates the query by which you want to match the posting to add new ones.

              $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal

       This is something similar to the commands pipeline:

              $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33' \
                | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts      --add-posting 'budget:gifts  *-1'       \
                                                              --add-posting 'assets:budget  *1'       \
                > rewritten-tidy-output.journal

       It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in journal is important.
       You can re-use result of previously added postings.

   Diff output format
       To  use  this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may find useful output
       in form of unified diff.

              $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33'

       Output might look like:

              --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal
              +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal
              @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@
               2008/01/01 income
              -    assets:bank:checking  $1
              +    assets:bank:checking            $1
                   income:salary
              +    (liabilities:tax)                0
              @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@
               2008/06/01 gift
              -    assets:bank:checking  $1
              +    assets:bank:checking            $1
                   income:gifts
              +    (liabilities:tax)                0

       If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions containing the posting that
       matches your query be updated.  Note that multiple files might be update according to list
       of input files specified via --file options and include directives inside of these files.

       Be careful.  Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output from hledger print.

       See also:

       https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99

   rewrite vs. print --auto
       This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same thing, but with these
       differences:

       • with  multiple  files,  rewrite  lets  rules  in any file affect all other files.  print
         --auto uses standard directive scoping; rules affect only child files.

       • rewrite's query limits which transactions can be  rewritten;  all  are  printed.   print
         --auto's query limits which transactions are printed.

       • rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal.  print --auto applies
         rules specified in the journal.

   roi
       Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on your investments.

       At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an account name)  to  select
       your  investment(s)  with  --inv,  and  another  query  to  identify  your profit and loss
       transactions with --pnl.

       If you do not record changes in the value of your investment manually, or do  not  require
       computation  of  time-weighted  return  (TWR),  --pnl could be an empty query (--pnl "" or
       --pnl STR where STR does not match any of your accounts).

       This command will compute and display the internalized rate  of  return  (IRR)  and  time-
       weighted  rate  of  return (TWR) for your investments for the time period requested.  Both
       rates of return are annualized before display,  regardless  of  the  length  of  reporting
       interval.

       Price  directives  will  be taken into account if you supply appropriate --cost or --value
       flags (see VALUATION).

       Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons:

       • Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR).   Possible  causes:
         IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of investment becomes negative at some point in time.

       • Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR).  Either
         search does not converge to a solution, or converges too slowly.

       Examples:

       • Using    roi    to    compute    total    return    of     investment     in     stocks:
         https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/investing/roi-
         unrealised.ledger

       • Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html

   Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl
       Note that --inv and --pnl's argument is a query, and queries  could  have  several  space-
       separated terms (see QUERIES).

       To  indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, you will need to put
       them in quotes (see Special characters):

              $ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...'

       If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will  need  an  extra  level  of  nested
       quoting, eg:

              $ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'"

   Semantics of --inv and --pnl
       Query supplied to --inv has to match all transactions that are related to your investment.
       Transactions not matching --inv will be ignored.

       In these transactions, ROI will conside  postings  that  match  --inv  to  be  "investment
       postings"  and  other  postings  (not  matching --inv) will be sorted into two categories:
       "cash flow" and "profit and loss", as ROI needs to know which part of the investment value
       is your contributions and which is due to the return on investment.

       • "Cash  flow"  is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling assets, or otherwise
         converting between your investment commodity and any other commodity.  Example:

                2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil
                  assets:cash          -$100
                  investment:snake oil

                2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil
                  assets:cash           $10
                  investment:snake oil  = 0

       • "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment:

                2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value
                  investment:snake oil  = $57
                  equity:unrealized profit or loss

       All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless they match --pnl  query.
       Changes  in  value of your investment due to "profit and loss" postings will be considered
       as part of your investment return.

       Example: if you use --inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized,  then  postings  in  the  example
       below would be classifed as:

              2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1
                assets:cash          -$100   ; cash flow posting
                investment:snake oil         ; investment posting

              2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2
                equity:unrealized pnl  -$100 ; profit and loss posting
                snake oil                    ; investment posting

              2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3
                equity:unrealized pnl        ; profit and loss posting
                cash          -$100          ; cash flow posting
                snake oil     $50            ; investment posting

   IRR and TWR explained
       "ROI"  stands for "return on investment".  Traditionally this was computed as a difference
       between current value of investment and its initial value, expressed in percentage of  the
       initial value.

       However,  this  approach  is only practical in simple cases, where investments receives no
       in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate of growth is fixed  over  time.   For  more
       complex  scenarios  you  need  different  ways to compute rate of return, and this command
       implements two of them: IRR and TWR.

       Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate of return") takes into
       account  effects  of  in-flows  and  out-flows.  Naively, if you are withdrawing from your
       investment, your future gains would be smaller  (in  absolute  numbers),  and  will  be  a
       smaller  percentage  of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your investment,
       you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same rate of return).  IRR  is
       a  way to compute rate of return for each period between in-flow or out-flow of money, and
       then combine them in a way that gives you a compound annual rate of return that investment
       is expected to generate.

       As  mentioned  before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that you personally put in
       or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are the postings that  match  the  query  in
       the--inv argument and NOT match the query in the--pnl argument.

       If  you  manually  record  changes  in  the  value of your investment as transactions that
       balance them against "profit and loss"  (or  "unrealized  gains")  account  or  use  price
       directives,  then in order for IRR to compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-
       flows on the rate of return, you will need to record the value of your investement  on  or
       close to the days when in- or out-flows occur.

       In  technical  terms,  IRR uses the same approach as computation of net present value, and
       tries to find a discount rate that makes net present value of all the cash flows  of  your
       investment  to add up to zero.  This could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if
       you haven't done discounted cash flow analysis before.  Implementation of IRR  in  hledger
       should produce results that match the XIRR formula in Excel.

       Second  way to compute rate of return that roi command implements is called "time-weighted
       rate of return" or "TWR".  Like IRR, it will also break the  history  of  your  investment
       into  periods between in-flows, out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per
       each period and then a compound rate of return.  However, internal  workings  of  TWR  are
       quite different.

       TWR  represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where in-flows/ out-flows lead
       to buying or selling "units" of your investment and changes in its value change the  value
       of  "investment unit".  Change in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of
       return of your investment.

       References:

       • Explanation of rate of return

       • Explanation of IRR

       • Explanation of TWR

       • Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations of both metrics

   stats
       Show journal and performance statistics.

       The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, or a matched part of
       it.  With a reporting interval, it shows a report for each report period.

       At  the  end,  it  shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and number of transactions
       processed per second.  Note these are approximate and will vary based on machine,  current
       load,  data size, hledger version, haskell lib versions, GHC version..  but they may be of
       interest.  The stats command's run time is similar to  that  of  a  single-column  balance
       report.

       Example:

              $ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal
              Main file                : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal
              Included files           :
              Transactions span        : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days)
              Last transaction         : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago)
              Transactions             : 1000 (1.0 per day)
              Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
              Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
              Payees/descriptions      : 1000
              Accounts                 : 1000 (depth 10)
              Commodities              : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z)
              Market prices            : 1000 (A)

              Run time                 : 0.12 s
              Throughput               : 8342 txns/s

       This command supports the -o/--output-file option (but not -O/--output-format selection).

   tags
       List the tags used in the journal, or their values.

       This  command  lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on transactions, postings,
       or account declarations.

       With  a  TAGREGEX  argument,  only  tag  names  matching  this  regular  expression  (case
       insensitive, infix matched) are shown.

       With  QUERY  arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this query are considered.
       If the query involves  transaction  fields  (date:,  desc:,  amt:,  ...),  the  search  is
       restricted to the matched transactions and their accounts.

       With  the  --values  flag,  the  tags'  unique  non-empty values are listed instead.  With
       -E/--empty, blank/empty values are also shown.

       With --parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they  were  parsed,  with  duplicates
       included.  (Except, tags from account declarations are always shown first.)

       Tip:  remember,  accounts also acquire tags from their parents, postings also acquire tags
       from their account and transaction, transactions also acquire tags from their postings.

   test
       Run built-in unit tests.

       This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, printing the results
       on stdout.  If any test fails, the exit code will be non-zero.

       This  is  mainly  used  by hledger developers, but you can also use it to sanity-check the
       installed hledger executable on your platform.  All tests are expected to pass  -  if  you
       ever see a failure, please report as a bug!

       This  command  also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -- (double hyphen).
       Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, with ANSI colour codes disabled:

              $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never

       For help on these, see  https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options  (--  --help  currently
       doesn't show them).

PART 5: COMMON TASKS

       Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger.

   Getting help
       Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs:

              $ hledger                # show available commands
              $ hledger --help         # show common options
              $ hledger CMD --help     # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation

       You  can  also  view  your  hledger  version's manual in several formats by using the help
       command.  Eg:

              $ hledger help           # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available)
              $ hledger help journal   # show the journal topic in the hledger manual
              $ hledger help --help    # find out more about the help command

       To view manuals and introductory docs on the web,  visit  https://hledger.org.   Chat  and
       mail list support and discussion archives can be found at https://hledger.org/support.

   Constructing command lines
       hledger has a flexible command line interface.  We strive to keep it simple and ergonomic,
       but if you run into one of the sharp edges described in OPTIONS, here are some  tips  that
       might help:

       • command-specific  options  must  go  after  the command (it's fine to put common options
         there too: hledger CMD OPTS ARGS)

       • running add-on executables directly simplifies command  line  parsing  (hledger-ui  OPTS
         ARGS)

       • enclose "problematic" args in single quotes

       • if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metacharacters from the shell

       • to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add --debug=2.

   Starting a journal file
       hledger  looks  for  your  accounting  data  in  a journal file, $HOME/.hledger.journal by
       default:

              $ hledger stats
              The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found.
              Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor.
              Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE.

       You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable (see below).  It's a
       good  practice  to keep this important file under version control, and to start a new file
       each year.  So you could do something like this:

              $ mkdir ~/finance
              $ cd ~/finance
              $ git init
              Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/
              $ touch 2023.journal
              $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2023.journal" >> ~/.profile
              $ source ~/.profile
              $ hledger stats
              Main file                : /Users/simon/finance/2023.journal
              Included files           :
              Transactions span        :  to  (0 days)
              Last transaction         : none
              Transactions             : 0 (0.0 per day)
              Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
              Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
              Payees/descriptions      : 0
              Accounts                 : 0 (depth 0)
              Commodities              : 0 ()
              Market prices            : 0 ()

   Setting LEDGER_FILE
       How to set LEDGER_FILE permanently depends on your setup:

       On unix and mac, running these commands in the terminal will work for many  people;  adapt
       as needed:

              $ echo 'export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/2023.journal` >> ~/.profile
              $ source ~/.profile

       When  correctly configured, in a new terminal window env | grep LEDGER_FILE will show your
       file, and so will hledger files.

       On mac, this additional step might be helpful for GUI  applications  (like  Emacs  started
       from the dock): add an entry to ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist like

              {
                "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/2023.journal"
              }

       and then run killall Dock in a terminal window (or restart the machine).

       On  Windows,  see  https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html,  or  try running these
       commands in a powershell window (let us know if it persists across a reboot,  and  if  you
       need to be an Administrator):

              > CD
              > MKDIR finance
              > SETX LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\USERNAME\finance\2023.journal"

   Setting opening balances
       Pick  a  starting  date  for  which you can look up the balances of some real-world assets
       (bank accounts, wallet..)  and liabilities (credit cards..).

       To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or  two  accounts,  like
       your  checking  account or cash wallet; and pick a recent starting date, like today or the
       start of the week.  You can always come  back  later  and  add  more  accounts  and  older
       transactions, eg going back to january 1st.

       Add  an  opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the balances on this date.
       Here are two ways to do it:

       • The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry like this:

                2023-01-01 * opening balances
                    assets:bank:checking                $1000   = $1000
                    assets:bank:savings                 $2000   = $2000
                    assets:cash                          $100   = $100
                    liabilities:creditcard               $-50   = $-50
                    equity:opening/closing balances

         These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in  the  account  at  the  end  of  the
         previous day.

         The * after the date is an optional status flag.  Here it means "cleared & confirmed".

         The  currency  symbols  are  optional, but usually a good idea as you'll be dealing with
         multiple currencies sooner or later.

         The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error checking.

       • The second way: run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a similar transaction:

                $ hledger add
                Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2023.journal
                Any command line arguments will be used as defaults.
                Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults.
                An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates.
                An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts.
                If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward.
                To end a transaction, enter . when prompted.
                To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c.
                Date [2023-02-07]: 2023-01-01
                Description: * opening balances
                Account 1: assets:bank:checking
                Amount  1: $1000
                Account 2: assets:bank:savings
                Amount  2 [$-1000]: $2000
                Account 3: assets:cash
                Amount  3 [$-3000]: $100
                Account 4: liabilities:creditcard
                Amount  4 [$-3100]: $-50
                Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances
                Amount  5 [$-3050]:
                Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
                2023-01-01 * opening balances
                    assets:bank:checking                      $1000
                    assets:bank:savings                       $2000
                    assets:cash                                $100
                    liabilities:creditcard                     $-50
                    equity:opening/closing balances          $-3050

                Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]:
                Saved.
                Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
                Date [2023-01-01]: .

       If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit the journal.  Eg:

              $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2023.journal

   Recording transactions
       As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using one of the  methods
       above  (text  editor, hledger add) or by using the hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or
       by using the import command to convert CSV data downloaded from your bank.

       Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual and  hledger.org  for
       more ideas:

              2023/1/10 * gift received
                assets:cash   $20
                income:gifts

              2023.1.12 * farmers market
                expenses:food    $13
                assets:cash

              2023-01-15 paycheck
                income:salary
                assets:bank:checking    $1000

   Reconciling
       Periodically  you  should  reconcile  -  compare  your  hledger-reported  balances against
       external sources of truth, like bank statements or your bank's website - to be  sure  that
       your  ledger  accurately  represents  the  real-world  balances  (and, that the real-world
       institutions have not made a mistake!).  This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2)
       frequency.   If  you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes.  If you let it pile up, expect
       it to take longer as you hunt down errors and discrepancies.

       A typical workflow:

       1. Reconcile cash.  Count what's in  your  wallet.   Compare  with  what  hledger  reports
          (hledger bal cash).  If they are different, try to remember the missing transaction, or
          look for the error in the already-recorded transactions.   A  register  report  can  be
          helpful  (hledger  reg  cash).   If  you  can't  find  the  error,  add  an  adjustment
          transaction.  Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain the missing $2, it
          could be:

                  2023-01-16 * adjust cash
                      assets:cash    $-2 = $105
                      expenses:misc

       2. Reconcile  checking.  Log in to your bank's website.  Compare today's (cleared) balance
          with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal checking -C).  If they are different, track
          down  the  error or record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction,
          similar to the above.  Unlike the cash case, you can usually  compare  the  transaction
          history  and  running  balance  from  your  bank  with  the one reported by hledger reg
          checking -C.  This will be easier if  you  generally  record  transaction  dates  quite
          similar to your bank's clearing dates.

       3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts.

       Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a live-updating register while
       you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --register checking -C

       After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled transactions' status  as
       "cleared  and  confirmed",  if  you want to track that, by adding the * marker.  Eg in the
       paycheck transaction above, insert * between 2023-01-15 and paycheck

       If you're using version control, this can be another good time to commit:

              $ git commit -m 'txns' 2023.journal

   Reporting
       Here are some basic reports.

       Show all transactions:

              $ hledger print
              2023-01-01 * opening balances
                  assets:bank:checking                      $1000
                  assets:bank:savings                       $2000
                  assets:cash                                $100
                  liabilities:creditcard                     $-50
                  equity:opening/closing balances          $-3050

              2023-01-10 * gift received
                  assets:cash              $20
                  income:gifts

              2023-01-12 * farmers market
                  expenses:food             $13
                  assets:cash

              2023-01-15 * paycheck
                  income:salary
                  assets:bank:checking           $1000

              2023-01-16 * adjust cash
                  assets:cash               $-2 = $105
                  expenses:misc

       Show account names, and their hierarchy:

              $ hledger accounts --tree
              assets
                bank
                  checking
                  savings
                cash
              equity
                opening/closing balances
              expenses
                food
                misc
              income
                gifts
                salary
              liabilities
                creditcard

       Show all account totals:

              $ hledger balance
                             $4105  assets
                             $4000    bank
                             $2000      checking
                             $2000      savings
                              $105    cash
                            $-3050  equity:opening/closing balances
                               $15  expenses
                               $13    food
                                $2    misc
                            $-1020  income
                              $-20    gifts
                            $-1000    salary
                              $-50  liabilities:creditcard
              --------------------
                                 0

       Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to depth 2:

              $ hledger bal assets liabilities -2
                             $4000  assets:bank
                              $105  assets:cash
                              $-50  liabilities:creditcard
              --------------------
                             $4055

       Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple balance sheet:

              $ hledger bs -2
              Balance Sheet 2023-01-16

                                      || 2023-01-16
              ========================++============
               Assets                 ||
              ------------------------++------------
               assets:bank            ||      $4000
               assets:cash            ||       $105
              ------------------------++------------
                                      ||      $4105
              ========================++============
               Liabilities            ||
              ------------------------++------------
               liabilities:creditcard ||        $50
              ------------------------++------------
                                      ||        $50
              ========================++============
               Net:                   ||      $4055

       The final total is your "net worth" on the end date.  (Or use bse for a full balance sheet
       with equity.)

       Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement:

              hledger is
              Income Statement 2023-01-01-2023-01-16

                             || 2023-01-01-2023-01-16
              ===============++=======================
               Revenues      ||
              ---------------++-----------------------
               income:gifts  ||                   $20
               income:salary ||                 $1000
              ---------------++-----------------------
                             ||                 $1020
              ===============++=======================
               Expenses      ||
              ---------------++-----------------------
               expenses:food ||                   $13
               expenses:misc ||                    $2
              ---------------++-----------------------
                             ||                   $15
              ===============++=======================
               Net:          ||                 $1005

       The final total is your net income during this period.

       Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total:

              $ hledger register cash
              2023-01-01 opening balances     assets:cash                   $100          $100
              2023-01-10 gift received        assets:cash                    $20          $120
              2023-01-12 farmers market       assets:cash                   $-13          $107
              2023-01-16 adjust cash          assets:cash                    $-2          $105

       Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart:

              $ hledger activity -W
              2019-12-30 *****
              2023-01-06 ****
              2023-01-13 ****

   Migrating to a new file
       At  the  end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new file, so that old
       transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, and to help ensure the integrity  of
       your accounting history.  See the close command.

       If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file.

BUGS

We welcome bug reports in the hledger issue tracker (shortcut: http://bugs.hledger.org),
or on the #hledger chat or hledger mail list (https://hledger.org/support).

Some known issues and limitations:

The need to precede add-on command options with -- when invoked from hledger is awkward.
(See Command options, Constructing command lines.)

A UTF-8-aware system locale must be configured to work with non-ascii data. (See Unicode
characters, Troubleshooting.)

On Microsoft Windows, depending whether you are running in a CMD window or a
Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window and how you installed hledger, non-ascii characters and colours
may not be supported, and the tab key may not be supported by hledger add. (Running in a
WSL window should resolve these.)

When processing large data files, hledger uses more memory than Ledger.

Troubleshooting
Here are some common issues you might encounter when you run hledger, and how to resolve
them (and remember also you can usually get quick Support):

PATH issues: I get an error like "No command 'hledger' found"
Depending how you installed hledger, the executables may not be in your shell's PATH. Eg
on unix systems, stack installs hledger in ~/.local/bin and cabal installs it in
~/.cabal/bin. You may need to add one of these directories to your shell's PATH, and/or
open a new terminal window.

LEDGER_FILE issues: I configured LEDGER_FILE but hledger is not using it
• LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell variable. Eg on
unix, the command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may need to use export
(see https://stackoverflow.com/a/7411509).

• You may need to force your shell to see the new configuration. A simple way is to close
your terminal window and open a new one.

LANG issues: I get errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete multibyte
or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid argument (invalid character)"
Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need the system locale to
be UTF-8-aware, or they will fail when they encounter non-ascii characters. To fix it,
set the LANG environment variable to a locale which supports UTF-8 and which is installed
on your system.

On unix, locale -a lists the installed locales. Look for one which mentions utf8, UTF-8
or similar. Some examples: C.UTF-8, en_US.utf-8, fr_FR.utf8. If necessary, use your
system package manager to install one. Then select it by setting the LANG environment
variable. Note, exact spelling and capitalisation of the locale name may be important:
Here's one common way to configure this permanently for your shell:

$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.profile
# close and re-open terminal window

COMPATIBILITY ISSUES: hledger gives an error with my Ledger file
Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax or feature set is supported. See hledger and
Ledger for full details.

AUTHORS

       Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> and contributors.
       See http://hledger.org/CREDITS.html

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 2007-2023 Simon Michael and contributors.

LICENSE

       Released under GNU GPL v3 or later.