Provided by: hledger_1.12.1-1build2_amd64 
NAME
hledger - a command-line accounting tool
SYNOPSIS
hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
hledger
DESCRIPTION
hledger is a cross-platform program 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).
Tested on unix, mac, windows, hledger aims to be a reliable, practical tool for daily use.
This is hledger's command-line interface (there are also curses and web interfaces). Its basic function
is to read a plain text file describing financial transactions (in accounting terms, a general journal)
and print useful reports on standard output, or export them as CSV. hledger can also read some other
file formats such as CSV files, translating them to journal format. Additionally, hledger lists other
hledger-* executables found in the user's $PATH and can invoke them as subcommands.
hledger reads data from one or more files in hledger journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV format specified
with -f, or $LEDGER_FILE, or $HOME/.hledger.journal (on windows, perhaps C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal).
If using $LEDGER_FILE, note this must be a real environment variable, not a shell variable. You can
specify standard input with -f-.
Transactions are dated movements of money between two (or more) named accounts, and are recorded with
journal entries like this:
2015/10/16 bought food
expenses:food $10
assets:cash
For more about this format, see hledger_journal(5).
Most users use a text editor to edit the journal, usually with an editor mode such as ledger-mode for
added convenience. hledger's interactive add command is another way to record new transactions. hledger
never changes existing transactions.
To get started, you can either save some entries like the above in ~/.hledger.journal, or run hledger add
and follow the prompts. Then try some commands like hledger print or hledger balance. Run hledger with
no arguments for a list of commands.
EXAMPLES
Two simple transactions in hledger journal format:
2015/9/30 gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts
2015/10/16 farmers market
expenses:food $10
assets:cash
Some basic reports:
$ hledger print
2015/09/30 gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts $-20
2015/10/16 farmers market
expenses:food $10
assets:cash $-10
$ hledger accounts --tree
assets
cash
expenses
food
income
gifts
$ hledger balance
$10 assets:cash
$10 expenses:food
$-20 income:gifts
--------------------
0
$ hledger register cash
2015/09/30 gift received assets:cash $20 $20
2015/10/16 farmers market assets:cash $-10 $10
More commands:
$ hledger # show available commands
$ hledger add # add more transactions to the journal file
$ hledger balance # all accounts with aggregated balances
$ hledger balance --help # show detailed help for balance command
$ hledger balance --depth 1 # only top-level accounts
$ hledger register # show account postings, with running total
$ hledger reg income # show postings to/from income accounts
$ hledger reg 'assets:some bank:checking' # show postings to/from this checking account
$ hledger print desc:shop # show transactions with shop in the description
$ hledger activity -W # show transaction counts per week as a bar chart
OPTIONS
General options
To see general usage help, including general options which are supported by most hledger commands, run
hledger -h.
General help options:
-h --help
show general usage (or after COMMAND, command usage)
--version
show 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
ignore any failing balance assertions
General reporting options:
-b --begin=DATE
include postings/txns on or after this date
-e --end=DATE
include postings/txns before this date
-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
(overrides the flags above)
--date2
match the secondary date instead (see command help for other effects)
-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 at transaction time (using the transaction price, if any)
-V --value
convert amounts to their market value on the report end date (using the most recent applicable
market price, if any)
--auto apply automated posting rules to modify transactions.
--forecast
apply periodic transaction rules to generate future transactions, to 6 months from now or report
end date.
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 options
To see options for a particular command, including command-specific options, run: hledger COMMAND -h.
Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: hledger print -x.
Additionally, if the command is an addon, you may need to put its options after a double-hyphen, eg:
hledger ui -- --watch. Or, you can run the addon executable directly: hledger-ui --watch.
Command arguments
Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which are often a query, filtering the
data in some way.
Argument files
You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, one per line, and then reuse them by
writing @FILENAME in a command line. To prevent this expansion of @-arguments, precede them with a --
argument. For more, see Save frequently used options.
Special characters in arguments and queries
In shell command lines, option and argument values which contain “problematic” characters, ie spaces, and
also characters significant to your shell such as <, >, (, ), | and $, should be escaped by enclosing
them in quotes or by writing backslashes before the characters. Eg:
hledger register -p 'last year' "accounts receivable (receivable|payable)" amt:\>100.
More escaping
Characters significant both to the shell and in regular expressions may need one extra level of escaping.
These include parentheses, the pipe symbol and the dollar sign. Eg, to match the dollar symbol, bash
users should do:
hledger balance cur:'\$'
or:
hledger balance cur:\\$
Even more escaping
When hledger runs an addon executable (eg you type hledger ui, hledger runs hledger-ui), it de-escapes
command-line options and arguments once, so you might need to triple-escape. Eg in bash, running the ui
command and matching the dollar sign, it's:
hledger ui cur:'\\$'
or:
hledger ui cur:\\\\$
If you asked why four slashes above, this may help:
unescaped: $
escaped: \$
double-escaped: \\$
triple-escaped: \\\\$
(The number of backslashes in fish shell is left as an exercise for the reader.)
You can always avoid the extra escaping for addons by running the addon directly:
hledger-ui cur:\\$
Less escaping
Inside an argument file, or in the search field of hledger-ui or hledger-web, or at a GHCI prompt, you
need one less level of escaping than at the command line. And backslashes may work better than quotes.
Eg:
ghci> :main balance cur:\$
Command line tips
If in doubt, keep things simple:
• write options after the command (hledger CMD -OPTIONS ARGS)
• run add-on executables directly (hledger-ui -OPTIONS ARGS)
• enclose problematic args in single quotes
• if needed, also add a backslash to escape regexp metacharacters
To find out exactly how a command line is being parsed, add --debug=2 to troubleshoot.
Unicode characters
hledger is expected to handle unicode (non-ascii) characters, but this requires a well-configured
environment.
To handle unicode characters in the command line or input data, a system locale that can decode them must
be configured (POSIX's default C locale will not work). Eg in bash, you could do:
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
See Troubleshooting for more about this.
Unicode characters should appear correctly in hledger's output. For the hledger and hledger-ui tools,
this requires that
• your terminal supports unicode
• the terminal's font includes the required unicode glyphs
• the terminal is configured to display “wide” characters as double width (otherwise report alignment
will be off)
Input files
hledger reads transactions from a data file (and the add command writes to it). By default this file is
$HOME/.hledger.journal (or on Windows, something like C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal). You can override
this with the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable:
$ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal
$ hledger stats
or with the -f/--file option:
$ hledger -f /some/file stats
The file name - (hyphen) means standard input:
$ cat some.journal | hledger -f-
Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can also be one of several other formats,
listed below. hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extension, or if that is not
recognised, by trying each built-in “reader” in turn:
Reader: Reads: Used for file extensions:
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
journal hledger's journal format, also .journal .j .hledger
some Ledger journals .ledger
timeclock timeclock files (precise time .timeclock
logging)
timedot timedot files (approximate time .timedot
logging)
csv comma-separated values (data .csv
interchange)
If needed (eg to ensure correct error messages when a file has the “wrong” extension), you can force a
specific reader/format by prepending it to the file path with a colon. Examples:
$ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats
$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:-
You can also specify multiple -f options, to read multiple files as one big journal. There are some
limitations with this:
• directives in one file will not affect the other files
• balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous files
If you need those, either use the include directive, or concatenate the files, eg:
cat a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD.
Smart dates
hledger's user interfaces accept a flexible “smart date” syntax (unlike dates in the journal file).
Smart dates allow some english words, can be relative to today's date, and can have less-significant date
parts omitted (defaulting to 1).
Examples:
2004/10/1, 2004-01-01, 2004.9.1 exact date, several separators
allowed. Year 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, tomorrow -1, 0, 1 days from today
last/this/next day/week/month/quarter/year -1, 0, 1 periods from the current
period
20181201 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year
month and day
201812 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and
month
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
Report start & end date
Most hledger reports show the full span of time represented by the journal data, by default. So, the
effective report start and end dates will be the earliest and latest transaction or posting dates found
in the journal.
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. One important thing to be aware of when specifying end dates: as in
Ledger, end dates are exclusive, so you need to write the date after the last day you want to include.
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
date:-12/1
date:thismonth-
date:thismonth
Report intervals
A report interval can be specified so that commands like register, balance and activity will divide their
reports into multiple subperiods. The basic intervals can be selected with one of -D/--daily,
-W/--weekly, -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, or -Y/--yearly. More complex intervals may be specified with
a period expression. Report intervals can not be specified with a query, currently.
Period expressions
The -p/--period option accepts period expressions, a shorthand way of expressing a start date, end date,
and/or report interval all at once.
Here's a basic period expression specifying the first quarter of 2009. Note, hledger always treats start
dates as inclusive and end dates as exclusive:
-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
Keywords like “from” and “to” are optional, and so are the spaces, as long as you don't run two dates
together. “to” can also be written as “-”. These 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, the above can also be written as:
-p "1/1 4/1"
-p "january-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 in
your journal:
-p "from 2009/1/1" everything after january 1, 2009
-p "from 2009/1" the same
-p "from 2009" the same
-p "to 2009" everything before january 1, 2009
A single date with no “from” or “to” defines both the start and end date like so:
-p "2009" the year 2009; equivalent to
“2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1”
-p "2009/1" the month of jan; equivalent to
“2009/1/1 to 2009/2/1”
-p "2009/1/1" just that day; equivalent to
“2009/1/1 to 2009/1/2”
The argument of -p can also begin with, or be, a report interval expression. The basic report intervals
are daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, which have the same effect as the -D,-W,-M,-Q, or -Y
flags. Between report interval and start/end dates (if any), the word in is optional. Examples:
-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
-p "monthly in 2008"
-p "quarterly"
Note that weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly intervals will always start on the first day on week,
month, quarter or year accordingly, and will end on the last day of same period, even if associated
period expression specifies different explicit start and end date.
For example:
-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" – starts on
2008/12/29, closest preceeding Monday
-p "monthly in 2008/11/25" – starts on 2018/11/01
-p "quarterly from 2009-05-05 to 2009-06-01" - starts on
2009/04/01, ends on 2009/06/30, which are first and last
days of Q2 2009
-p "yearly from 2009-12-29" - starts on 2009/01/01,
first day of 2009
The following more complex report intervals are also supported: biweekly, bimonthly,
every day|week|month|quarter|year, every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years.
All of these will start on the first day of the requested period and end on the last one, as described
above.
Examples:
-p "bimonthly from 2008" – periods will have boundaries
on 2008/01/01, 2008/03/01, ...
-p "every 2 weeks" – starts on closest preceeding Monday
-p "every 5 month from 2009/03" – periods will have
boundaries on 2009/03/01, 2009/08/01, ...
If you want intervals that start on arbitrary day of your choosing and span a week, month or year, you
need to use any of the following:
every Nth day of week, every <weekday>, every Nth day [of month], every Nth weekday [of month],
every MM/DD [of year], every Nth MMM [of year], every MMM Nth [of year].
Examples:
-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 Nov
-p "every 5th Nov" – same
-p "every Nov 5th" – same
Show historical balances at end of 15th each month (N is exclusive end date):
hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day"
Group postings from start of wednesday to end of next tuesday (N is start date and exclusive end date):
hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week"
Depth limiting
With the --depth N option (short form: -N), commands like account, balance and register will show only
the uppermost accounts in the account tree, down to level N. Use this when you want a summary with less
detail. This flag has the same effect as a depth: query argument (so -2, --depth=2 or depth:2 are
basically equivalent).
Pivoting
Normally hledger sums amounts, and organizes them in a hierarchy, based on account name. The
--pivot FIELD option causes it to sum and organize hierarchy based on the value of some other field
instead. FIELD can be: code, description, payee, note, or the full name (case insensitive) of any tag.
As with account names, values containing colon:separated:parts will be displayed hierarchically in
reports.
--pivot is a general option affecting all reports; you can think of hledger transforming the journal
before any other processing, replacing every posting's account name with the value of the specified field
on that posting, inheriting it from the transaction or using a blank value if it's not present.
An example:
2016/02/16 Member Fee Payment
assets:bank account 2 EUR
income:member fees -2 EUR ; member: John Doe
Normal balance report showing account names:
$ hledger balance
2 EUR assets:bank account
-2 EUR income:member fees
--------------------
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, described below):
$ 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
Cost
The -B/--cost flag converts amounts to their cost at transaction time, if they have a transaction price
specified.
Market value
The -V/--value flag converts reported amounts to their current market value.
Specifically, when there is a market price (P directive) for the amount's commodity, dated on or before
today's date (or the report end date if specified), the amount will be converted to the price's
commodity.
When there are multiple applicable P directives, -V chooses the most recent one, or in case of equal
dates, the last-parsed one.
For example:
# 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
Currently, hledger's -V only uses market prices recorded with P directives, not transaction prices
(unlike Ledger).
Currently, -V has a limitation in multicolumn balance reports: it uses the market prices on the report
end date for all columns. (Instead of the prices on each column's end date.)
Combining -B and -V
Using -B/–cost and -V/–value together is currently allowed, but the results are probably not meaningful.
Let us know if you find a use for this.
Output destination
Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) can write their output to a destination
other than the console. This is controlled by the -o/--output-file option.
$ hledger balance -o - # write to stdout (the default)
$ hledger balance -o FILE # write to FILE
Output format
Some commands can write their output in other formats. Eg print and register can output CSV, and the
balance commands can output CSV or HTML. This is controlled by the -O/--output-format option, or by
specifying a .csv or .html file extension with -o/--output-file.
$ hledger balance -O csv # write CSV to stdout
$ hledger balance -o FILE.csv # write CSV to FILE.csv
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 directives and options: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT, --alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT
hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. In general they:
• are case insensitive
• are infix matching (do not need to match the entire thing being matched)
• are POSIX extended regular expressions
• also support GNU word boundaries (\<, \>, \b, \B)
• and parenthesised capturing groups and numeric backreferences in replacement strings
• do not support mode modifiers like (?s)
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.
QUERIES
One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on precise subsets of your data. Most
commands accept an optional query expression, written as arguments after the command name, to filter the
data by date, account name or other criteria. The syntax is similar to a web search: one or more
space-separated search terms, quotes to enclose whitespace, prefixes to match specific fields, a not:
prefix to negate the match.
We do not yet support arbitrary boolean combinations of search terms; instead most commands show
transactions/postings/accounts which match (or negatively 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 instead shows 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.
The following kinds of search terms can be used. Remember these can also be prefixed with not:, eg to
exclude a particular subaccount.
REGEX, acct:REGEX
match account names by this regular expression. (With no prefix, acct: is assumed.)
same as above
amt:N, amt:<N, amt:<=N, amt:>N, amt:>=N
match postings with a single-commodity amount that is equal to, less than, or greater than N.
(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 characters which are
regex-significant, like the dollar sign ($), you need to prepend \. And when using the command
line you need to add one more level of quoting to hide it from the shell, so eg do:
hledger print cur:'\$' or hledger print cur:\\$.
desc:REGEX
match transaction descriptions.
date:PERIODEXPR
match dates within the specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression (with no report
interval). Examples: date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2000/2/1-2/15, date:lastweek-. If the
--date2 command line flag is present, this matches secondary dates instead.
date2:PERIODEXPR
match secondary dates within the specified period.
depth:N
match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this depth
note:REGEX
match transaction notes (part of description right of |, or whole description when there's no |)
payee:REGEX
match transaction payee/payer names (part of description left of |, or whole description when
there's no |)
real:, real:0
match real or virtual postings respectively
status:, status:!, status:*
match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively
tag:REGEX[=REGEX]
match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. Note a tag: query is considered to match a
transaction if it matches any of the postings. Also remember that postings inherit the tags of
their parent transaction.
The following special search term is used automatically in hledger-web, only:
inacct:ACCTNAME
tells hledger-web to show the transaction register for this account. Can be filtered further with
acct etc.
Some of these can also be expressed as command-line options (eg depth:2 is equivalent to --depth 2).
Generally you can mix options and query arguments, and the resulting query will be their intersection
(perhaps excluding the -p/--period option).
COMMANDS
hledger provides a number of subcommands; hledger with no arguments shows a list.
If you install additional hledger-* packages, or if you put programs or scripts named hledger-NAME in
your PATH, these will also be listed as subcommands.
Run a subcommand by writing its name as first argument (eg hledger incomestatement). You can also write
one of the standard short aliases displayed in parentheses in the command list (hledger b), or any any
unambiguous prefix of a command name (hledger inc).
Here are all the builtin commands in alphabetical order. See also hledger for a more organised command
list, and hledger CMD -h for detailed command help.
accounts
Show account names. Alias: a.
--declared
show account names declared with account directives
--used show account names posted to by transactions
--tree show short account names and their parents, as a tree
--flat show full account names, as a list (default)
--drop=N
in flat mode: omit N leading account name parts
This command lists account names, either declared with account directives (–declared), posted to (–used),
or both (default). With query arguments, only matched account names and account names referenced by
matched postings are shown. 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.
Examples:
$ hledger accounts --tree
assets
bank
checking
saving
cash
expenses
food
supplies
income
gifts
salary
liabilities
debts
$ hledger accounts --drop 1
bank:checking
bank:saving
cash
food
supplies
gifts
salary
debts
$ hledger accounts
assets:bank:checking
assets:bank:saving
assets:cash
expenses:food
expenses:supplies
income:gifts
income:salary
liabilities:debts
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.
$ 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.
--no-new-accounts
don't allow creating new accounts; helps prevent typos when entering account names
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 journal file (if there are multiple -f FILE options, the first file
is used.) Existing transactions are not changed. This is the only hledger command that writes to the
journal file.
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 recent transaction (by description) 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, 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 restart the transaction.
• Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal supports it.
Example (see the tutorial for a detailed explanation):
$ 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 restart the transaction.
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> $
balance
Show accounts and their balances. Aliases: b, bal.
--change
show balance change in each period (default)
--cumulative
show balance change accumulated across periods (in multicolumn reports)
-H --historical
show historical ending balance in each period (includes postings before report start date)
--tree show accounts as a tree; amounts include subaccounts (default in simple reports)
--flat show accounts as a list; amounts exclude subaccounts except when account is depth-clipped (default
in multicolumn reports)
-A --average
show a row average column (in multicolumn mode)
-T --row-total
show a row total column (in multicolumn mode)
-N --no-total
don't show the final total row
--drop=N
omit N leading account name parts (in flat mode)
--no-elide
don't squash boring parent accounts (in tree mode)
--format=LINEFORMAT
in single-column balance reports: use this custom line format
-O FMT --output-format=FMT
select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv, html.
-o FILE --output-file=FILE
write output to FILE. A file extension matching one of the above formats selects that format.
--pretty-tables
use unicode to display prettier tables.
--sort-amount
sort by amount instead of account code/name (in flat mode). With multiple columns, sorts by the
row total, or by row average if that is displayed.
--invert
display all amounts with reversed sign
--budget
show performance compared to budget goals defined by periodic transactions
--show-unbudgeted
with –budget, show unbudgeted accounts also
The balance command is hledger's most versatile command. Note, despite the name, it is not always used
for showing real-world account balances; the more accounting-aware balancesheet and incomestatement may
be more convenient for that.
By default, it displays all accounts, and each account's change in balance during the entire period of
the journal. Balance changes are calculated by adding up the postings in each account. You can limit
the postings matched, by a query, to see fewer accounts, changes over a different time period, changes
from only cleared transactions, etc.
If you include an account's complete history of postings in the report, the balance change is equivalent
to the account's current ending balance. For a real-world account, typically you won't have all
transactions in the journal; instead you'll have all transactions after a certain date, and an “opening
balances” transaction setting the correct starting balance on that date. Then the balance command will
show real-world account balances. In some cases the -H/–historical flag is used to ensure this (more
below).
The balance command can produce several styles of report:
Classic balance report
This is the original balance report, as found in Ledger. It usually looks like this:
$ hledger balance
$-1 assets
$1 bank:saving
$-2 cash
$2 expenses
$1 food
$1 supplies
$-2 income
$-1 gifts
$-1 salary
$1 liabilities:debts
--------------------
0
By default, accounts are displayed hierarchically, with subaccounts indented below their parent. At each
level of the tree, accounts are sorted by account code if any, then by account name. Or with
-S/--sort-amount, by their balance amount.
“Boring” accounts, which contain a single interesting subaccount and no balance of their own, are elided
into the following line for more compact output. (Eg above, the “liabilities” account.) Use --no-elide
to prevent this.
Account balances are “inclusive” - they include the balances of any subaccounts.
Accounts which have zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts) are omitted. Use -E/--empty to show them.
A final total is displayed by default; use -N/--no-total to suppress it, eg:
$ hledger balance -p 2008/6 expenses --no-total
$2 expenses
$1 food
$1 supplies
Customising the classic balance report
You can customise the layout of classic balance reports with --format FMT:
$ hledger 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 (plus a newline) 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
Colour support
The balance command shows negative amounts in red, if:
• the TERM environment variable is not set to dumb
• the output is not being redirected or piped anywhere
Flat mode
To see a flat list instead of the default hierarchical display, use --flat. In this mode, accounts
(unless depth-clipped) show their full names and “exclusive” balance, excluding any subaccount balances.
In this mode, you can also use --drop N to omit the first few account name components.
$ hledger balance -p 2008/6 expenses -N --flat --drop 1
$1 food
$1 supplies
Depth limited balance reports
With --depth N or depth:N or just -N, balance reports show accounts only to the specified numeric depth.
This is very useful to summarise a complex set of accounts and get an overview.
$ hledger balance -N -1
$-1 assets
$2 expenses
$-2 income
$1 liabilities
Flat-mode balance reports, which normally show exclusive balances, show inclusive balances at the depth
limit.
Multicolumn balance report
Multicolumn or tabular balance reports are a very useful hledger feature, and usually the preferred
style. They share many of the above features, but they show the report as a table, with columns
representing time periods. This mode is activated by providing a reporting interval.
There are three types of multicolumn balance report, showing different information:
1. By default: each column shows the sum of postings in that period, ie the account's change of balance
in that period. This is useful eg for a monthly income statement:
$ hledger balance --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
2. With --cumulative: each column shows the ending balance for that period, accumulating the changes
across periods, starting from 0 at the report start date:
$ hledger balance --quarterly income expenses -E --cumulative
Ending balances (cumulative) in 2008:
|| 2008/03/31 2008/06/30 2008/09/30 2008/12/31
===================++=================================================
expenses:food || 0 $1 $1 $1
expenses:supplies || 0 $1 $1 $1
income:gifts || 0 $-1 $-1 $-1
income:salary || $-1 $-1 $-1 $-1
-------------------++-------------------------------------------------
|| $-1 0 0 0
3. With --historical/-H: each column shows the actual historical ending balance for that period,
accumulating the changes across periods, starting from the actual balance at the report start date.
This is useful eg for a multi-period balance sheet, and when you are showing only the data after a
certain start date:
$ hledger balance ^assets ^liabilities --quarterly --historical --begin 2008/4/1
Ending balances (historical) in 2008/04/01-2008/12/31:
|| 2008/06/30 2008/09/30 2008/12/31
======================++=====================================
assets:bank:checking || $1 $1 0
assets:bank:saving || $1 $1 $1
assets:cash || $-2 $-2 $-2
liabilities:debts || 0 0 $1
----------------------++-------------------------------------
|| 0 0 0
Multicolumn balance reports display accounts in flat mode by default; to see the hierarchy, use --tree.
With a reporting interval (like --quarterly above), the report start/end dates will be adjusted if
necessary so that they encompass the displayed report periods. This is so that the first and last
periods will be “full” and comparable to the others.
The -E/--empty flag does two things in multicolumn balance reports: first, the report will show all
columns within the specified report period (without -E, leading and trailing columns with all zeroes are
not shown). Second, all accounts which existed at the report start date will be considered, not just the
ones with activity during the report period (use -E to include low-activity accounts which would
otherwise would be omitted).
The -T/--row-total flag adds an additional column showing the total for each row.
The -A/--average flag adds a column showing the average value in each row.
Here's an example of all three:
$ hledger balance -Q income expenses --tree -ETA
Balance changes in 2008:
|| 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 Total Average
============++===================================================
expenses || 0 $2 0 0 $2 $1
food || 0 $1 0 0 $1 0
supplies || 0 $1 0 0 $1 0
income || $-1 $-1 0 0 $-2 $-1
gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 $-1 0
salary || $-1 0 0 0 $-1 0
------------++---------------------------------------------------
|| $-1 $1 0 0 0 0
# Average is rounded to the dollar here since all journal amounts are
Limitations:
In multicolumn reports the -V/--value flag uses the market price on the report end date, for all columns
(not the price on each column's end date).
Eliding of boring parent accounts in tree mode, as in the classic balance report, is not yet supported in
multicolumn reports.
Budget report
With --budget, extra columns are displayed showing budget goals for each account and period, if any.
Budget goals are defined by periodic transactions. This is very useful for comparing planned and actual
income, expenses, time usage, etc. –budget is most often combined with a report interval.
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:
|| 2017/11 2017/12
======================++=================================================
<unbudgeted> || $20 $100
assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [99% of $-2480] $-2665 [107% of $-2480]
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
By default, only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown. --show-unbudgeted shows
unbudgeted accounts as well. Top-level accounts with no budget goals anywhere below them are grouped
under <unbudgeted>.
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:
|| 2017/11/30 2017/12/31
======================++=================================================
<unbudgeted> || $20 $120
assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [99% of $-2480] $-5110 [103% of $-4960]
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
Note, the -S/--sort-amount flag is not yet fully supported with --budget.
For more examples, see Budgeting and Forecasting.
Output format
The balance command supports output destination and output format selection.
balancesheet
This command displays a simple balance sheet, showing historical ending balances of asset and liability
accounts (ignoring any report begin date). It assumes that these accounts are under a top-level asset or
liability account (case insensitive, plural forms also allowed). Note this report shows all account
balances with normal positive sign (like conventional financial statements, unlike
balance/print/register) (experimental). (bs)
--change
show balance change in each period, instead of historical ending balances
--cumulative
show balance change accumulated across periods (in multicolumn reports), instead of historical
ending balances
-H --historical
show historical ending balance in each period (includes postings before report start date)
(default)
--tree show accounts as a tree; amounts include subaccounts (default in simple reports)
--flat show accounts as a list; amounts exclude subaccounts except when account is depth-clipped (default
in multicolumn reports)
-A --average
show a row average column (in multicolumn mode)
-T --row-total
show a row total column (in multicolumn mode)
-N --no-total
don't show the final total row
--drop=N
omit N leading account name parts (in flat mode)
--no-elide
don't squash boring parent accounts (in tree mode)
--format=LINEFORMAT
in single-column balance reports: use this custom line format
--sort-amount
sort by amount instead of account code/name
Example:
$ hledger balancesheet
Balance Sheet
Assets:
$-1 assets
$1 bank:saving
$-2 cash
--------------------
$-1
Liabilities:
$1 liabilities:debts
--------------------
$1
Total:
--------------------
0
With a reporting interval, multiple columns will be shown, one for each report period. As with
multicolumn balance reports, you can alter the report mode with --change/--cumulative/--historical.
Normally balancesheet shows historical ending balances, which is what you need for a balance sheet; note
this means it ignores report begin dates.
This command also supports output destination and output format selection.
balancesheetequity
Just like balancesheet, but also reports Equity (which it assumes is under a top-level equity account).
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
cashflow
This command displays a simple cashflow statement, showing changes in “cash” accounts. It assumes that
these accounts are under a top-level asset account (case insensitive, plural forms also allowed) and do
not contain receivable or A/R in their name. Note this report shows all account balances with normal
positive sign (like conventional financial statements, unlike balance/print/register) (experimental).
(cf)
--change
show balance change in each period (default)
--cumulative
show balance change accumulated across periods (in multicolumn reports), instead of changes during
periods
-H --historical
show historical ending balance in each period (includes postings before report start date),
instead of changes during each period
--tree show accounts as a tree; amounts include subaccounts (default in simple reports)
--flat show accounts as a list; amounts exclude subaccounts except when account is depth-clipped (default
in multicolumn reports)
-A --average
show a row average column (in multicolumn mode)
-T --row-total
show a row total column (in multicolumn mode)
-N --no-total
don't show the final total row (in simple reports)
--drop=N
omit N leading account name parts (in flat mode)
--no-elide
don't squash boring parent accounts (in tree mode)
--format=LINEFORMAT
in single-column balance reports: use this custom line format
--sort-amount
sort by amount instead of account code/name
Example:
$ hledger cashflow
Cashflow Statement
Cash flows:
$-1 assets
$1 bank:saving
$-2 cash
--------------------
$-1
Total:
--------------------
$-1
With a reporting interval, multiple columns will be shown, one for each report period. Normally cashflow
shows changes in assets per period, though as with multicolumn balance reports you can alter the report
mode with --change/--cumulative/--historical.
This command also supports output destination and output format selection.
check-dates
Check that transactions are sorted by increasing date. With a query, only matched transactions' dates
are checked.
check-dupes
Report account names having the same leaf but different prefixes. An example:
http://stefanorodighiero.net/software/hledger-dupes.html
close
Print closing/opening transactions that bring some or all account balances to zero and back. Can be
useful for bringing asset/liability balances across file boundaries, or for closing out income/expenses
for a period. This was formerly called “equity”, as in Ledger, and that alias is also accepted. See
close –help for more.
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 any of the hledger manuals.
The help command displays any of the main hledger manuals, in one of several ways. Run it with no
argument to list the manuals, or provide a full or partial manual name to select one.
hledger manuals are available in several formats. hledger help will use the first of these display
methods that it finds: info, man, $PAGER, less, stdout (or when non-interactive, just stdout). You can
force a particular viewer with the --info, --man, --pager, --cat flags.
$ hledger help
Please choose a manual by typing "hledger help MANUAL" (a substring is ok).
Manuals: hledger hledger-ui hledger-web hledger-api journal csv timeclock timedot
$ hledger help h --man
hledger(1) hledger User Manuals hledger(1)
NAME
hledger - a command-line accounting tool
SYNOPSIS
hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
hledger
DESCRIPTION
hledger is a cross-platform program for tracking money, time, or any
...
import
Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to the main journal file.
--dry-run
just show the transactions to be imported
The input files are specified as arguments - no need to write -f before each one. So eg to add new
transactions from all CSV files to the main journal, it's just: hledger import *.csv
New transactions are detected in the same way as print –new: by assuming transactions are always added to
the input files in increasing date order, and by saving .latest.FILE state files.
The –dry-run output is in journal format, so you can filter it, eg to see only uncategorised
transactions:
$ hledger import --dry ... | hledger -f- print unknown --ignore-assertions
incomestatement
This command displays a simple income statement, showing revenues and expenses during a period. It
assumes that these accounts are under a top-level revenue or income or expense account (case insensitive,
plural forms also allowed). Note this report shows all account balances with normal positive sign (like
conventional financial statements, unlike balance/print/register) (experimental). (is)
--change
show balance change in each period (default)
--cumulative
show balance change accumulated across periods (in multicolumn reports), instead of changes during
periods
-H --historical
show historical ending balance in each period (includes postings before report start date),
instead of changes during each period
--tree show accounts as a tree; amounts include subaccounts (default in simple reports)
--flat show accounts as a list; amounts exclude subaccounts except when account is depth-clipped (default
in multicolumn reports)
-A --average
show a row average column (in multicolumn mode)
-T --row-total
show a row total column (in multicolumn mode)
-N --no-total
don't show the final total row
--drop=N
omit N leading account name parts (in flat mode)
--no-elide
don't squash boring parent accounts (in tree mode)
--format=LINEFORMAT
in single-column balance reports: use this custom line format
--sort-amount
sort by amount instead of account code/name
This command displays a simple income statement. It currently assumes that you have top-level accounts
named income (or revenue) and expense (plural forms also allowed.)
$ hledger incomestatement
Income Statement
Revenues:
$-2 income
$-1 gifts
$-1 salary
--------------------
$-2
Expenses:
$2 expenses
$1 food
$1 supplies
--------------------
$2
Total:
--------------------
0
With a reporting interval, multiple columns will be shown, one for each report period. Normally
incomestatement shows revenues/expenses per period, though as with multicolumn balance reports you can
alter the report mode with --change/--cumulative/--historical.
This command also supports output destination and output format selection.
prices
Print market price directives from the journal. With –costs, also print synthetic market prices based on
transaction prices. With –inverted-costs, also print inverse prices based on transaction prices. Prices
(and postings providing prices) can be filtered by a query.
print
Show transactions from the journal. Aliases: p, txns.
-m STR --match=STR
show the transaction whose description is most similar to STR, and is most recent
--new show only newer-dated transactions added in each file since last run
-x --explicit
show all amounts explicitly
-O FMT --output-format=FMT
select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv.
-o FILE --output-file=FILE
write output to FILE. A file extension matching one of the above formats selects that format.
$ 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
The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the journal file in date order,
tidily formatted. print's output is always a valid hledger journal. It preserves all transaction
information, but it does not preserve directives or inter-transaction comments
Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is preserved. Ie when an amount is
omitted in the journal, it will be omitted in the output. You can use the -x/--explicit flag to make all
amounts explicit, which can be useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and
robust against data entry errors. Note, -x will cause postings with a multi-commodity amount (these can
arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an implicit amount) will be split into multiple
single-commodity postings, for valid journal output.
With -B/--cost, amounts with transaction prices are converted to cost using that price. This can be used
for troubleshooting.
With -m/--match and a STR argument, print will show at most one transaction: the one one whose
description is most similar to STR, and is most recent. STR should contain at least two characters. If
there is no similar-enough match, no transaction will be shown.
With --new, for each FILE being read, hledger reads (and writes) a special state file (.latest.FILE in
the same directory), containing the latest transaction date(s) that were seen last time FILE was read.
When this file is found, only transactions with newer dates (and new transactions on the latest date) are
printed. This is useful for ignoring already-seen entries in import data, such as downloaded CSV files.
Eg:
$ hledger -f bank1.csv print --new
# shows transactions added since last print --new on this file
This assumes that transactions added to FILE always have same or increasing dates, and that transactions
on the same day do not get reordered. See also the import command.
This command also supports output destination and output format selection. 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.)
print-unique
Print transactions which do not reuse an already-seen description.
register
Show postings and their running total. Aliases: r, reg.
--cumulative
show running total from report start date (default)
-H --historical
show historical running total/balance (includes postings before report start date)
-A --average
show running average of posting amounts instead of total (implies –empty)
-r --related
show postings' siblings instead
-w N --width=N
set output width (default: terminal width or COLUMNS. -wN,M sets description width as well)
-O FMT --output-format=FMT
select the output format. Supported formats: txt, csv.
-o FILE --output-file=FILE
write output to FILE. A file extension matching one of the above formats selects that format.
The register command displays postings, one per line, and their running total. This 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
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.
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.
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:
<--------------------------------- 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, and set description width
This command also supports output destination and output format selection.
register-match
Print the one posting whose transaction description is closest to DESC, in the style of the register
command. Helps ledger-autosync detect already-seen transactions when importing.
rewrite
Print all transactions, adding custom postings to the matched ones.
roi
Shows time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on your investments. See roi --help
for more.
stats
Show some journal statistics.
-o FILE --output-file=FILE
write output to FILE. A file extension matching one of the above formats selects that format.
$ hledger stats
Main journal file : /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal
Included journal files :
Transactions span : 2008-01-01 to 2009-01-01 (366 days)
Last transaction : 2008-12-31 (2333 days ago)
Transactions : 5 (0.0 per day)
Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
Payees/descriptions : 5
Accounts : 8 (depth 3)
Commodities : 1 ($)
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.
This command also supports output destination and output format selection.
tags
List all the tag names used in the journal. With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching the
regular expression (case insensitive) are shown. With additional QUERY arguments, only transactions
matching the query are considered.
test
Run built-in unit tests.
Prints test names and their results on stdout. If any test fails or gives an error, the exit code will
be non-zero.
Test names include a group prefix. If a (exact, case sensitive) group prefix, or a full test name is
provided as the first argument, only that group or test is run.
If a numeric second argument is provided, it will set the randomness seed, for repeatable results from
tests using randomness (currently none of them).
This is mainly used by developers, but it's nice to be able to sanity-check your installed hledger
executable at any time. All tests are expected to pass - if you ever see otherwise, something has gone
wrong, please report a bug!
ADD-ON COMMANDS
hledger also searches for external add-on commands, and will include these in the commands list. These
are programs or scripts in your PATH whose name starts with hledger- and ends with a recognised file
extension (currently: no extension, bat,com,exe, hs,lhs,pl,py,rb,rkt,sh).
Add-ons can be invoked like any hledger command, but there are a few things to be aware of. Eg if the
hledger-web add-on is installed,
• hledger -h web shows hledger's help, while hledger web -h shows hledger-web's help.
• Flags specific to the add-on must have a preceding -- to hide them from hledger. So
hledger web --serve --port 9000 will be rejected; you must use hledger web -- --serve --port 9000.
• You can always run add-ons directly if preferred: hledger-web --serve --port 9000.
Add-ons are a relatively easy way to add local features or experiment with new ideas. They can be
written in any language, but haskell scripts have a big advantage: they can use the same hledger (and
haskell) library functions that built-in commands do, for command-line options, journal parsing,
reporting, etc.
Here are some hledger add-ons available:
Official add-ons
These are maintained and released along with hledger.
api
hledger-api serves hledger data as a JSON web API.
ui
hledger-ui provides an efficient curses-style interface.
web
hledger-web provides a simple web interface.
Third party add-ons
These are maintained separately, and usually updated shortly after a hledger release.
diff
hledger-diff shows differences in an account's transactions between one journal file and another.
iadd
hledger-iadd is a curses-style, more interactive replacement for the add command.
interest
hledger-interest generates interest transactions for an account according to various schemes.
irr
hledger-irr calculates the internal rate of return of an investment account, but it's superseded now by
the built-in roi command.
Experimental add-ons
These are available in source form in the hledger repo's bin/ directory; installing them is pretty easy.
They may be less mature and documented than built-in commands. Reading and tweaking these is a good way
to start making your own!
autosync
hledger-autosync is a symbolic link for easily running ledger-autosync, if installed. ledger-autosync
does deduplicating conversion of OFX data and some CSV formats, and can also download the data if your
bank offers OFX Direct Connect.
chart
hledger-chart.hs is an old pie chart generator, in need of some love.
check
hledger-check.hs checks more powerful account balance assertions.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the full terminal width.
LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. Default: ~/.hledger.journal (on windows,
perhaps C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal).
FILES
Reads data from one or more files in hledger journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV format specified with
-f, or $LEDGER_FILE, or $HOME/.hledger.journal (on windows, perhaps C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal).
BUGS
The need to precede addon command options with -- when invoked from hledger is awkward.
When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale must be configured (or there will
be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX, set LANG to something other than C.
In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are not supported.
In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger add.
Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See file format differences.
On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than Ledger.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and remember you can also seek help from
the IRC channel, mail list or bug tracker):
Successfully installed, but “No command `hledger' found”
stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should be added to your PATH environment
variable. Eg on unix-like systems, that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively.
I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file
LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell variable. The command
env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may need to use export. Here's an explanation.
“Illegal byte sequence” or “Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character” errors
In order to handle non-ascii letters and symbols (like £), hledger needs an appropriate locale. This is
usually configured system-wide; you can also configure it temporarily. The locale may need to be one
that supports UTF-8, if you built hledger with GHC < 7.2 (or possibly always, I'm not sure yet).
Here's an example of setting the locale temporarily, on ubuntu gnu/linux:
$ file my.journal
my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # <- the file is UTF8-encoded
$ locale -a
C
en_US.utf8 # <- a UTF8-aware locale is available
POSIX
$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # <- use it for this command
Here's one way to set it permanently, there are probably better ways:
$ echo "export LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >>~/.bash_profile
$ bash --login
If we preferred to use eg fr_FR.utf8, we might have to install that first:
$ apt-get install language-pack-fr
$ locale -a
C
en_US.utf8
fr_BE.utf8
fr_CA.utf8
fr_CH.utf8
fr_FR.utf8
fr_LU.utf8
POSIX
$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print
Note some platforms allow variant locale spellings, but not all (ubuntu accepts fr_FR.UTF8, mac osx
requires exactly fr_FR.UTF-8).
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger IRC channel or hledger mail list)
AUTHORS
Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> and contributors
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2007-2016 Simon Michael.
Released under GNU GPL v3 or later.
SEE ALSO
hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), hledger-api(1), hledger_csv(5), hledger_journal(5),
hledger_timeclock(5), hledger_timedot(5), ledger(1)
http://hledger.org
hledger 1.12 December 2018 hledger(1)