Ellane ·𐑧𐑤𐑱𐑯<p>Simple really is better, more times than not.</p><p>Yesterday I figured out how to track savings goals in Beancount (Fava) by creating a parallel BGT currency. It involves more data entry, but it does the calculation between what's already saved and my goal. </p><p>Nice, but unnecessary.</p><p>Today I scrapped all that (yay for backups!) and simply added the savings goal to the name of each account. Thanks for the tip on the forum, <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://fosstodon.org/@simonmic" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>simonmic</span></a></span> </p><p><a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plainTextAccounting</span></a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/finance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>finance</span></a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/budget" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>budget</span></a></p>
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#plaintextaccounting
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IanTwenty<p>I love <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/PlainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PlainTextAccounting</span></a> but this week learnt there's also plain text <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/screenplay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>screenplay</span></a> writing with the Fountain syntax:</p><p><a href="https://fountain.io/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">fountain.io/</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p>This syntax is already understood by FOSS writing tools such as Trelby:</p><p><a href="https://www.trelby.org/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="">trelby.org/</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p>The perfect combo to ensure that movie you're writing will still be readable by future civilizations.</p>
Simon Michael<p>hledger 1.42 is out, with new run and repl commands.<br>Thank you to contributors Dmitry Astapov, gesh, Thomas<br>Miedema, Joschua Kesper, and Lars Kellogg-Stedman !</p><p>- <a href="https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/releases/1.42" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">github.com/simonmichael/hledge</span><span class="invisible">r/releases/1.42</span></a><br>- <a href="https://hledger.org/relnotes.html#2025-03-07-hledger-142" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">hledger.org/relnotes.html#2025</span><span class="invisible">-03-07-hledger-142</span></a><br>- <a href="https://hledger.org/install" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">hledger.org/install</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a> is free, robust, friendly, multicurrency, double-entry,<br><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a> software for unix, mac, windows, and the web,<br>written in <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/haskell" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>haskell</span></a> for reliability.</p>
Simon Michael<p>The hledger project's first year-end report.</p><p><a href="https://joyful.com/hledger+project+2024+report" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">joyful.com/hledger+project+202</span><span class="invisible">4+report</span></a></p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/haskell" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>haskell</span></a></p>
Simon Michael<p><a href="https://joyful.com/Lot+tracking+in+PTA" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">joyful.com/Lot+tracking+in+PTA</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p>Tracking investment lots is often necessary to calculate capital gains accurately and to comply with tax law. It's a tricky, increasingly widespread bookkeeping need. This page aims to be a useful guide to the topic, for PTA users and PTA developers.</p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a><br><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a><br><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/ledgercli" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ledgercli</span></a><br><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/beancount" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>beancount</span></a><br><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/bookkeeping" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>bookkeeping</span></a></p>
Ellane ·𐑧𐑤𐑱𐑯<p>After 7 months of <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plainTextAccounting</span></a>, insights are starting to flow. Honestly I have no idea how I'd have tracked all this without a) paying a ridiculous amount of $ every month, b) locking myself into an app that doesn't do what I need it to, and c) makes it hard to move somewhere else!</p><p>Admittedly the hardest thing about PTA wasn't learning how to use the command line. It was learning the principles of accounting, and how to apply them to my situation.</p><p><a href="https://pkm.social/tags/finance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>finance</span></a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/accounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>accounting</span></a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plainText</span></a></p>
Simon Michael<p>New notes on my <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a> workflow:<br><a href="https://joyful.com/hledger+workflow+2025" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">joyful.com/hledger+workflow+20</span><span class="invisible">25</span></a></p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a></p>
Sandro Santilli<p>Great idea to do accounting via text files and command line, thanks <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://floss.social/@gisgeek" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>gisgeek</span></a></span> for introducing me in this world !</p><p><a href="https://plaintextaccounting.org/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">plaintextaccounting.org/</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p><a href="https://floss.social/tags/PlainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PlainTextAccounting</span></a></p>
Simon Michael<p>Awesome world/national <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/finance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>finance</span></a> dashboards can be found at</p><p><a href="https://www.usdebtclock.org" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="">usdebtclock.org</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p>Seen on Hacker News today, also discussed at <a href="https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/470" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">forum.plaintextaccounting.org/</span><span class="invisible">t/470</span></a></p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/world" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>world</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/money" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>money</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/debt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>debt</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/environment" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>environment</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a></p>
Tim Chase<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@jpmens" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>jpmens</span></a></span> meanwhile, you can get ledger/hledger/beancount for free 😉</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a></p>
winduptoy<p>Anybody know how to compute per-commodity totals in ledger/hledger? I'm trying to figure out total revenue per product. I posted some more details here in the Plain Text Accounting forum.</p><p><a href="https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/totals-by-commodity/466" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">forum.plaintextaccounting.org/</span><span class="invisible">t/totals-by-commodity/466</span></a><br> <br><a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a> <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a> <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/askfedi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>askfedi</span></a></p>
Dave<p>New <a href="https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/blog" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>blog</span></a> post!</p><p>A year of <a href="https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a> </p><p><a href="https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/a-year-of-plaintext-accounting/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/a-yea</span><span class="invisible">r-of-plaintext-accounting/</span></a></p>
Simon Michael<p>A good read for <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a> devs/contributors/sponsors: </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/plaintextaccounting/comments/1ht5ry6/deep_bow_of_gratitude_and_respect_to_everyone" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">reddit.com/r/plaintextaccounti</span><span class="invisible">ng/comments/1ht5ry6/deep_bow_of_gratitude_and_respect_to_everyone</span></a></p><p>(Or if you prefer the PTA forum: <a href="https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/451" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">forum.plaintextaccounting.org/</span><span class="invisible">t/451</span></a>)</p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a></p>
Serge from Babka<p>When you use plain text accounting and you have to generate an income statement for the year:</p><p>hledger is --begin 2024-01-01 -end 2024-12-31</p><p><a href="https://babka.social/tags/PlainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PlainTextAccounting</span></a></p>
/c64/youth.sid<p>Really getting into plain text accounting with hledger. If you are like me and hate anything to do with accounting, but coding scratches an itch, this could be for you. I now have the same control over my financial transactions and reports as I have over my source code. <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/Finance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Finance</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a></p>
Antonio Gurgel<p>I hacked together a review of my projects' commits from last year.</p><p><a href="https://paste.sr.ht/~goorzhel/07f7aecf7bc6051370da19eb1838d143762ca741" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">paste.sr.ht/~goorzhel/07f7aecf</span><span class="invisible">7bc6051370da19eb1838d143762ca741</span></a></p><p>Salient trends:<br>- In January–Feburary, I created a homelab NixOS flake from scratch, after having used divnix/digga long past its deprecation.<br>- In April, I first published my Beancount tools, `budget` and `categorize` (<a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/PlainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PlainTextAccounting</span></a>). Hidden from view is the two months I spent developing them inside `~/money/bin`.<br>- In May, I read about the Chakraborty–Vinodchandran–Meel algorithm and implemented it in Python. I naively used a dictionary and couldn't find a suitable treap library, so it's brutally slow.<br>- I spent the holiday break refactoring Turboprop.</p>
HoldMyTypejust a tmp feelgood
Yann Büchau :nixos:<p>Another super interesting chart for me is this one: accounting loss over time, i.e. things that slip through the radar. </p><p>I fill my <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a> journal very thoroughly with ~1500 txns/year that I sort and tag meticulously, including all things cash (this is where things get lost).</p><p>What you can see here is: No matter how hard I try, ~1€/day slips through my radar - a lost receipt, some coins change hand on a market, etc. I find the consistency of this very fascinating 😀 </p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plainTextAccounting</span></a></p>
Yann Büchau :nixos:<p>Is this the <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/inflation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>inflation</span></a> everyone talks about or increasing <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hedonism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hedonism</span></a>? 😅 Our living expenses have steadily increased over the last eight years. I can't remeber being particularly more economical in the past. </p><p>Made with my :hledger: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/hledger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hledger</span></a>-plot command (<a href="https://gitlab.com/nobodyinperson/hledger-utils#hledger-plot---plotting-charts-of-hledger-queries" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">gitlab.com/nobodyinperson/hled</span><span class="invisible">ger-utils#hledger-plot---plotting-charts-of-hledger-queries</span></a>). I find such graphical budgeting and planning very powerful. That's the power of <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/plainTextAccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plainTextAccounting</span></a>: You got the data, do anything with it. 🚀 </p><p>Thanks <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://fosstodon.org/@simonmic" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>simonmic</span></a></span> for hledger, such a fantastic tool! 🥳</p>
Federico Lopez Correa<p>Colores aleatorios para las caras de las fuentes en ledger-mode</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/elisp" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>elisp</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/ledgerCli" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>ledgerCli</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/emacs" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>emacs</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/ledgerMode" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>ledgerMode</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>plaintextaccounting</span></a></p>
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