I’m a big fan of command line accounting software, and use a similar program to ledger called beancount, with fava as an alternative GUI for introspection. Here’s a good breakdown on the differences between beancount and ledger. I do a lot of input manually, but there are a bunch of scripts out there to try and download and auto-classify transactions to make maintaining transactions a bit easier.
I’m with @elasticdog, I prefer Beancount, too. It has more checks builtin to detect mistakes (protecting me from myself) and fava’s pretty sweet. My family also uses Moneydance (also recommended, but not command line) and I export that data as XML and swizzle it into Beancount. Very happy with this system.
Martian has done a great job documenting Beancount, too. Checkout the Cookbook and all the Beancount documentation.
I manage to balance my entire year’s accounting using Ledger every year. It’s a marathon session every time, but it works. It also may be time for me too look at improving my process.
Yes, thanks for the link! I’ve tried to read introductions to accounting before, but I have quickly been defeated. I just started reading the one by Beancount’s author here and it’s the only one that’s ever really been helpful. The focus on +/- rather than debit/credit makes so much more sense to me.
I’m a big fan of command line accounting software, and use a similar program to ledger called beancount, with fava as an alternative GUI for introspection. Here’s a good breakdown on the differences between beancount and ledger. I do a lot of input manually, but there are a bunch of scripts out there to try and download and auto-classify transactions to make maintaining transactions a bit easier.
EDIT: Also, this is a great resource for all projects like ledger: http://plaintextaccounting.org/
I’m with @elasticdog, I prefer Beancount, too. It has more checks builtin to detect mistakes (protecting me from myself) and fava’s pretty sweet. My family also uses Moneydance (also recommended, but not command line) and I export that data as XML and swizzle it into Beancount. Very happy with this system.
Martian has done a great job documenting Beancount, too. Checkout the Cookbook and all the Beancount documentation.
Thanks for these resources.
I manage to balance my entire year’s accounting using Ledger every year. It’s a marathon session every time, but it works. It also may be time for me too look at improving my process.
Yes, thanks for the link! I’ve tried to read introductions to accounting before, but I have quickly been defeated. I just started reading the one by Beancount’s author here and it’s the only one that’s ever really been helpful. The focus on +/- rather than debit/credit makes so much more sense to me.