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ledger-cli

ledger-cli is a plaintext accounting utility. The CLI processes Ledger formatted plaintext files to perform accounting functions.

Basics

All commands require a ledger file provided using either the -f argument or the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. I personally choose to use the env variable as configured in my .bashrc:

# .bashrc file
LEDGER_FILE=/home/oliver/ledger.txt

Report account balances

ledger bal Assets:Chequing
  CAD 100.00 Assets:Chequing

Report account balance history

ledger reg Assets:Chequing

Print transactions

ledger print Assets:Chequing

List all accounts

ledger accounts

List all payees

ledger payees

List all commodities

ledger commodities

Data Mutator Flags

The following flags are used to mutate data values returned in variuos reports.

Convert commodities values to a common commodity:

-X $COMMODITY

For example, convert account balances to CAD:

ledger bal Assets -X CAD

It is best to be explicit with whether the conversion should be performed with today's market price or historical cost values:

# Historical expense costs
ledger bal Expenses -H -X CAD

# Current market values of assets
ledger bal Assets -V -X CAD

Another complication is if you would like to know the market price on a specific date, for example, end-of-year:

# Historical market value of assets
ledger bal Assets -V -X CAD --now 2019-12-31 --end 2019-12-31

Sort Flags

Sort balances in decreasing order of total amount:

ledger bal Expenses -S -T

Output Flags

The following flags manipulate the output format of reports.

Report the full name of accounts rather than indicate nesting with indentation:

ledger bal Assets --flat

Report only the date and output value (works for single account and commodity):

ledger reg --amount-data -X CAD -H Assets:Chequing

Report total asset balance in CSV format:

ledger bal -V -X CAD -n Assets --balance-format "%(format_date(date, '%F')),%(floor(quantity(display_total)))"

Filters

Limit to postings of a given commodity:

ledger reg Assets -l 'commodity =~ /XBT/'

Print transactions for a given payee:

ledger print Expenses -l 'payee =~ /KFC/'

Limit to certain date period:

ledger print Assets:Chequing --begin 2020-12-01 --end 2020-12-31

Limit to specific tag:

ledger reg %TFSA

Limit to negative postings (for example to report credit card spending):

ledger bal "Liabilities:Credit Cards:TD" -l "amount < 0"

Limit to expenses including a specific account (to identify expenses charged to credit card):

ledger bal Expenses and expr 'any(account =~ /Liabilities:Credit Cards:PC/)'

Custom Reports

View top expense accounts in decreasing amounts:

ledger bal Expenses -H -X CAD --flat -S -T

Calculate total value of all assets in CAD:

ledger bal Assets -X CAD -n

Show monthly asset value diff

ledger -M register Assets -X CAD -n --no-rounding

Show monthly expense value diff

ledger -M register Expenses -X CAD -n --no-rounding

Average increase in assets per month

ledger reg Assets -X CAD -M -n --no-rounding --format "%t\n" | awk '{ sum += $2; n++ } END { if (n > 0) print sum / n; }'

View value held in each commodity reported in CAD:

ledger bal Assets --group-by commodity -X CAD -V -n