Inspired by Andrew Cantino's blog about accounting with Ledger and Reckon, I started this year out following his workflow. I've used MS MyMoney, GnuCash, KMyMoney, and Mint before. Ledger is my clear favorite out of these.
All of the software offerings are similar: they download transactions, some do a reasonable job of classifying them, but I universally spend longer than I want to wrangling transactions and generating reports. Mint is awesome at sucking in transactions and categorizing them. It is focused more on budgeting than the full compliment of accounting functions. This is good for me, since I am no accountant; I just want to track my spending and keep an eye on my budget. However, I was never comfortable with all the access that Mint had to my financial life. I also wanted more flexibility with report generation than Mint offers.
Switching to the command line makes a lot of sense, since you can easily script your workflow and spend approximately no time performing routine actions. Andrew wrote about using Reckon, a Ruby program for loading transactions from CSV and appending them to your Ledger journal. I started out using the same workflow, but I got tired fast of downloading CSV files from all my accounts. So, I put together account-cli, which is similar to Reckon, but adds the ability to download transactions straight from the bank using OFX (aka Direct Connect).
Using account-cli, here is my workflow:
- Download recent transactions from the one account that doesn't support OFX
- Issue this command:
account-cli path/to/ledger/journal.dat path/to/your/config.yamlThis downloads new transactions, adds them to my journal, and then prints out my balance and budget reports. - Profit!
Having a simple 2-step process has been the major factor that keeps me on top of my finances.
The Ledger documentation has a really good introduction. It walks you through how to use the program, of course, but it also gives you an accessible intro to accounting.
Following Andrew's advice and also the tutorial for ledger, I start a new Ledger file at the new year. The first block is the budget:
~ Monthly
Expenses:Automotive:Gas $300.00
Expenses:Entertainment $30.00
Expenses:Food:Dining Out $500.00
Expenses:Food:Groceries $250.00
Assets
~ Yearly
Expenses:Travel $1500.00
Assets
Then comes the opening balances:
2013/01/01 * Opening Balances
Assets:Bank:Savings $100.00
Liabilities:Bank:Credit Card $-100.00
Liabilities:Student Loan $900.00
Equity: Opening Balances
Then, you just keep a running list of transactions:
2013/02/04 Example Transaction
Expenses:Automotive:Gas $1000.00
Assets:Bank:Checking
2013/03/04 Example Transaction 2
Expenses:Food:Dining Out $400.00
Assets:Bank:Checking
2013/10/04 Example Transaction 5
Income:Work:Reimbursement $-100.00
Assets:Bank:Checking
2013/11/04 Example Transaction 4
Income:Work:Paycheck $-3,000.00
Assets:Bank:Checking
2013/12/04 Example Transaction 3
Expenses:Food:Groceries $600.00
Assets:Bank:Checking
The next component is the configuration file for account-cli. Here is the example config I put together with comments explaining all the parts.
Let's say that journal is stored in a file called 2013.dat, and the config is in config.yaml, and that you followed the
couple of simple steps to install account-cli.
All you have to do to update your finances is run the command:
account-cli 2013.dat config.yaml
It will download new transactions, match them against the journal, and walk you through the categorization like this:
+----------------------+------------+-----------+------------------------+
| Assets:Bank:Savings | 2013/12/13 | -$1000.00 | Withdrawal to Checking |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+------------------------+
To which account did this money go? ([account] / [q]uit/ [s]kip / [1]Bank:Transfer / [2]Expenses:Utilities / [3]Expenses:Entertainment) 1
+-----------------------+------------+---------+----------------+
| Assets:Bank:Checking | 2013/12/14 | -$80.00 | ATM Withdrawal |
+-----------------------+------------+---------+----------------+
To which account did this money go? ([account] / [q]uit/ [s]kip / [1]Expenses:Entertainment / [2]Bank:Transfer / [3]Expenses:Automotive:Fees) Expenses:Misc
+-----------------------+------------+----------+----------------------+
| Assets:Bank:Checking | 2013/12/13 | $1000.00 | Deposit from Savings |
+-----------------------+------------+----------+----------------------+
From which account did this money come? ([account] / [q]uit/ [s]kip / [1]Bank:Transfer / [2]Income:Work:Reimbursement / [3]Income:Work:Paycheck) 1
Then, it prints out the reports:
Balances: Assets and Liabilities
$1,200.00 Assets:Bank
$1,100.00 Checking
$100.00 Savings
$800.00 Liabilities
$-100.00 Bank:Credit Card
$900.00 Student Loan
--------------------
$2,000.00
Balances: Expenses and Income
$2,000.00 Expenses
$1,000.00 Automotive:Gas
$1,000.00 Food
$400.00 Dining Out
$600.00 Groceries
$-3,100.00 Income:Work
$-3,000.00 Paycheck
$-100.00 Reimbursement
--------------------
$-1,100.00
Budget: this year
Actual Budget Diff Burn Account
$2,000.00 $13,380.00 $-11,380.00 15% Expenses
$1,000.00 $3,300.00 $-2,300.00 30% Automotive:Gas
0 $330.00 $-330.00 0 Entertainment
$1,000.00 $8,250.00 $-7,250.00 12% Food
$400.00 $5,500.00 $-5,100.00 7% Dining Out
$600.00 $2,750.00 $-2,150.00 22% Groceries
0 $1,500.00 $-1,500.00 0 Travel
------------ ------------ ------------ -----
$2,000.00 $13,380.00 $-11,380.00 15%
Percent of Period complete: 95%
Budget: this quarter
Actual Budget Diff Burn Account
$600.00 $1,080.00 $-480.00 56% Expenses
0 $300.00 $-300.00 0 Automotive:Gas
0 $30.00 $-30.00 0 Entertainment
$600.00 $750.00 $-150.00 80% Food
0 $500.00 $-500.00 0 Dining Out
$600.00 $250.00 $350.00 240% Groceries
------------ ------------ ------------ -----
$600.00 $1,080.00 $-480.00 56%
Percent of Period complete: 82%
Budget: this month
Actual Budget Diff Burn Account
$600.00 $1,080.00 $-480.00 56% Expenses
0 $300.00 $-300.00 0 Automotive:Gas
0 $30.00 $-30.00 0 Entertainment
$600.00 $750.00 $-150.00 80% Food
0 $500.00 $-500.00 0 Dining Out
$600.00 $250.00 $350.00 240% Groceries
------------ ------------ ------------ -----
$600.00 $1,080.00 $-480.00 56%
Percent of Period complete: 46%
As a final note, Ledger is a powerful piece of accounting software, and you can run all kinds of reports. As I discover new, useful ones, I'll update my scripts.
If you have any feedback or advice, I'd welcome comments and pull requests!
Cheers! -John