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 reliable, cross-platform set of programs 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).

This is hledger’s command-line interface (there are also terminal 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.

COMMON TASKS

Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger. For more details, see the reference section below, the hledger_journal(5) manual, or the more extensive docs at https://hledger.org.

  Getting help

    $ hledger                 # show available commands
    $ hledger --help          # show common options
    $ hledger CMD --help      # show common and command options, and command help
    $ hledger help            # show available manuals/topics
    $ hledger help hledger    # show hledger manual as info/man/text (auto-chosen)
    $ hledger help journal --man  # show the journal manual as a man page
    $ hledger help --help     # show more detailed help for the help command

Find more docs, chat, mail list, reddit, issue tracker: https://hledger.org#help-feedback

  Constructing command lines

hledger has an extensive and powerful command line interface. We strive to keep it simple and ergonomic, but you may run into one of the confusing real world details described in OPTIONS, below. If that happens, here are some tips that may help:

•   command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to put all options there) (hledger CMD OPTS ARGS)

•   running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing (hledger-ui OPTS ARGS)

•   enclose "problematic" args in single quotes

•   if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metacharacters from the shell

•   to see how a misbehaving command is being parsed, add --debug=2.

  Starting a journal file

hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, $HOME/.hledger.journal by default:

    $ hledger stats
    The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found.
    Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor.
    Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE.

You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. It's a good practice to keep this important file under version control, and to start a new file each year. So you could do something like this:

    $ mkdir ~/finance
    $ cd ~/finance
    $ git init
    Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/
    $ touch 2020.journal
    $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc
    $ source ~/.bashrc
    $ hledger stats
    Main file                : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal
    Included files           :
    Transactions span        :  to  (0 days)
    Last transaction         : none
    Transactions             : 0 (0.0 per day)
    Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
    Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
    Payees/descriptions      : 0
    Accounts                 : 0 (depth 0)
    Commodities              : 0 ()
    Market prices            : 0 ()

  Setting opening balances

Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit cards..).

To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg going back to january 1st.

Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the balances on this date. Here are two ways to do it:

•   The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry like this:

        2020-01-01 * opening balances
            assets:bank:checking                $1000   = $1000
            assets:bank:savings                 $2000   = $2000
            assets:cash                          $100   = $100
            liabilities:creditcard               $-50   = $-50
            equity:opening/closing balances

    These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at the end of the previous day.

    The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means "cleared & confirmed".

    The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you'll be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later.

    The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error checking.

•   The second way: run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a similar transaction:

        $ hledger add
        Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.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 go one step backward.
        To end a transaction, enter . when prompted.
        To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c.
        Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01
        Description: * opening balances
        Account 1: assets:bank:checking
        Amount  1: $1000
        Account 2: assets:bank:savings
        Amount  2 [$-1000]: $2000
        Account 3: assets:cash
        Amount  3 [$-3000]: $100
        Account 4: liabilities:creditcard
        Amount  4 [$-3100]: $-50
        Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances
        Amount  5 [$-3050]:
        Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
        2020-01-01 * opening balances
            assets:bank:checking                      $1000
            assets:bank:savings                       $2000
            assets:cash                                $100
            liabilities:creditcard                     $-50
            equity:opening/closing balances          $-3050
        Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]:
        Saved.
        Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
        Date [2020-01-01]: .

If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit the journal. Eg:

    $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal

  Recording transactions

As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to convert CSV data downloaded from your bank.

Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual and hledger.org for more ideas:

    2020/1/10 * gift received
      assets:cash   $20
      income:gifts
    2020.1.12 * farmers market
      expenses:food    $13
      assets:cash
    2020-01-15 paycheck
      income:salary
      assets:bank:checking    $1000

  Reconciling

Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported balances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not made a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let it pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and discrepancies.

A typical workflow:

1.  Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what hledger reports (hledger bal cash). If they are different, try to remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful (hledger reg cash). If you can't find the error, add an adjustment transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain the missing $2, it could be:

        2020-01-16 * adjust cash
            assets:cash    $-2 = $105
            expenses:misc

2.  Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare today's (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal checking -C). If they are different, track down the error or record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the transaction history and running balance from your bank with the one reported by hledger reg checking -C. This will be easier if you generally record transaction dates quite similar to your bank's clearing dates.

3.  Repeat for other asset/liability accounts.

Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a live-updating register while you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --register checking -C

After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track that, by adding the * marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, insert * between 2020-01-15 and paycheck

If you're using version control, this can be another good time to commit:

    $ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal

  Reporting

Here are some basic reports.

Show all transactions:

    $ hledger print
    2020-01-01 * opening balances
        assets:bank:checking                      $1000
        assets:bank:savings                       $2000
        assets:cash                                $100
        liabilities:creditcard                     $-50
        equity:opening/closing balances          $-3050
    2020-01-10 * gift received
        assets:cash              $20
        income:gifts
    2020-01-12 * farmers market
        expenses:food             $13
        assets:cash
    2020-01-15 * paycheck
        income:salary
        assets:bank:checking           $1000
    2020-01-16 * adjust cash
        assets:cash               $-2 = $105
        expenses:misc

Show account names, and their hierarchy:

    $ hledger accounts --tree
    assets
      bank
        checking
        savings
      cash
    equity
      opening/closing balances
    expenses
      food
      misc
    income
      gifts
      salary
    liabilities
      creditcard

Show all account totals:

    $ hledger balance
                   $4105  assets
                   $4000    bank
                   $2000      checking
                   $2000      savings
                    $105    cash
                  $-3050  equity:opening/closing balances
                     $15  expenses
                     $13    food
                      $2    misc
                  $-1020  income
                    $-20    gifts
                  $-1000    salary
                    $-50  liabilities:creditcard
    --------------------
                       0

Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to depth 2:

    $ hledger bal assets liabilities --flat -2
                   $4000  assets:bank
                    $105  assets:cash
                    $-50  liabilities:creditcard
    --------------------
                   $4055

Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple balance sheet:

    $ hledger bs --flat -2
    Balance Sheet 2020-01-16
                            || 2020-01-16
    ========================++============
     Assets                 ||
    ------------------------++------------
     assets:bank            ||      $4000
     assets:cash            ||       $105
    ------------------------++------------
                            ||      $4105
    ========================++============
     Liabilities            ||
    ------------------------++------------
     liabilities:creditcard ||        $50
    ------------------------++------------
                            ||        $50
    ========================++============
     Net:                   ||      $4055

The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use bse for a full balance sheet with equity.)

Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement:

    hledger is
    Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16
                   || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16
    ===============++=======================
     Revenues      ||
    ---------------++-----------------------
     income:gifts  ||                   $20
     income:salary ||                 $1000
    ---------------++-----------------------
                   ||                 $1020
    ===============++=======================
     Expenses      ||
    ---------------++-----------------------
     expenses:food ||                   $13
     expenses:misc ||                    $2
    ---------------++-----------------------
                   ||                   $15
    ===============++=======================
     Net:          ||                 $1005

The final total is your net income during this period.

Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total:

    $ hledger register cash
    2020-01-01 opening balances     assets:cash                   $100          $100
    2020-01-10 gift received        assets:cash                    $20          $120
    2020-01-12 farmers market       assets:cash                   $-13          $107
    2020-01-16 adjust cash          assets:cash                    $-2          $105

Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart:

    $ hledger activity -W
    2019-12-30 *****
    2020-01-06 ****
    2020-01-13 ****

  Migrating to a new file

At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the close command.

If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file.

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
    disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance assignments)

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

--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/selling amount at transaction time

-V --market
    convert amounts to their market value in default valuation commodities

-X --exchange=COMM
    convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM

--value
    convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than -B/-V/-X

--infer-value
    with -V/-X/--value, also infer market prices from transactions

--auto
    apply automated posting rules to modify transactions.

--forecast
    generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also make ordinary future transactions visible.

--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)
    Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color-supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg when piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this.

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.

You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line argument. Eg: hledger bal @foo.args. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument that begins with a literal @, precede it with --, eg: hledger bal -- @ARG).

Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or nothing). Bad:

    assets depth:2
    -X USD

Good:

    assets
    depth:2
    -X=USD

For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting than you would at the command prompt. Bad:

    -X"$"

Good:

    -X$

See also: Save frequently used options.

  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).

  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:\$

  Unicode characters

hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly:

•   they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit forms, etc.)

•   they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on-screen alignment should be preserved.

This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips:

•   A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale like this: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There are some more details in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled programs).

•   your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) must support unicode

•   the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode glyphs

•   the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as double width (for report alignment)

•   on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the standard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961).

  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 be in any of the supported file formats, which currently are:

Reader: | Reads: | Used for file extensions:
journal | hledger journal files and some Ledger journals, for transactions | .journal .j .hledger .ledger
timeclock | timeclock files, for precise time logging | .timeclock
timedot | timedot files, for approximate time logging | .timedot
csv | comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated values, for data import | .csv .ssv .tsv

hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes journal format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show relevant error messages.

When you can't ensure the right file extension, not to worry: you can force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path with the format and a colon. Eg to read a .dat file as csv:

    $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats
    $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:-

You can 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 either of those things, you can

•   use a single parent file which includes the others

•   or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: cat a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD.

  Output destination

hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax:

    $ hledger print > foo.txt

Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also provide the -o/--output-file option, which does the same thing without needing the shell. Eg:

    $ hledger print -o foo.txt
    $ hledger print -o -        # write to stdout (the default)

  Output format

Some commands (print, register, the balance commands) offer a choice of output format. In addition to the usual plain text format (txt), there are CSV (csv), HTML (html), JSON (json) and SQL (sql). This is controlled by the -O/--output-format option:

    $ hledger print -O csv

or, by a file extension specified with -o/--output-file:

    $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.html   # write HTML to foo.html

The -O option can be used to override the file extension if needed:

    $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O html   # write HTML to foo.txt

Some notes about JSON output:

•   This feature is marked experimental, and not yet much used; you should expect our JSON to evolve. Real-world feedback is welcome.

•   Our JSON is rather large and verbose, as it is quite a faithful representation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs.

•   hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don't limit the number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195)

Notes about SQL output:

•   SQL output is also marked experimental, and much like JSON could use real-world feedback.

•   SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL

•   SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables created via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to either clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped.

  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. If they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what they support:

1.  they are case insensitive

2.  they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing being matched)

3.  they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions)

4.  they also support GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, \>)

5.  they do not support backreferences; if you write \1, it will match the digit 1. Except when doing text replacement, eg in account aliases, where backreferences can be used in the replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search regexp.

6.  they do not support mode modifiers ((?s)), character classes (\w, \d), or anything else not mentioned above.

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.

  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.

Some notes:

•   As in Ledger, end dates are exclusive, so you need to write the date after the last day you want to include.

•   As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with options, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence.

•   The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of the start/end dates from options and that from date: queries. That is, date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030' yields January 2019, the smallest common time span.

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 (.. can also be replaced with -)
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.

  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 ".." or "-". 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”

Or you can specify a single quarter like so:

-p "2009Q1" | first quarter of 2009, equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1”
-p "q4" | fourth quarter of the current year

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 preceding 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, fortnightly, 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 preceding 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 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

  Valuation

Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in the transaction), or to market value (using some market price on a certain date). This is controlled by the --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] option, but we also provide the simpler -B/-V/-X flags, and usually one of those is all you need.

  -B: Cost

The -B/--cost flag converts amounts to their cost or sale amount at transaction time, if they have a transaction price specified.

  -V: Value

The -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in their default valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation date(s), if any. More on these in a minute.

  -X: Value in specified commodity

The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V, except you tell it which currency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to that.

  Valuation date

Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market prices will be used.

For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date is "today".

For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day of the period.

  Market prices

(experimental)

To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in this order of preference :

1.  A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest market price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P directive, or (if the --infer-value flag is used) inferred from transaction prices.

2.  A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market price from B to A.

3.  A chained market price: a synthetic price formed by combining the shortest chain of market prices (any of the above types) leading from A to B.

Amounts for which no applicable market price can be found, are not converted.

  --infer-value: market prices from transactions

(experimental)

Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market value, why not use the recorded transaction prices as additional market prices (as Ledger does) ? We could produce value reports without needing P directives at all.

Adding the --infer-value flag to -V, -X or --value enables this. So for example, hledger bs -V --infer-value will get market prices both from P directives and from transactions.

There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in confusing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to you, read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding --debug or --debug=2 to troubleshoot.

--infer-value can infer market prices from:

•   multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@)

•   multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no @, two commodities, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings matters. hledger print -x can be useful for troubleshooting.)

•   but not, currently, from "more correct" multicommodity transactions (no @, multiple commodities, balanced).

  Valuation commodity

(experimental)

When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM):
hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a suitable market price (including by reversing or chaining prices).

When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (-V or --value TYPE):
For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as follows, in this order of preference:

1.  The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on or before valuation date.

2.  The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred prices before the valuation date.)

3.  If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the --infer-value flag is used: the price commodity from the latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date.

This means:

•   If you have P directives, they determine which commodities -V will convert, and to what.

•   If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-value flag, transaction prices determine it.

Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not converted.

  Simple valuation examples

Here are some quick examples of -V:

    ; 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

  --value: Flexible valuation

-B, -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option:

     --value=TYPE[,COMM]  TYPE is cost, then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD.
                          COMM is an optional commodity symbol.
                          Shows amounts converted to:
                          - cost commodity using transaction prices (then optionally to COMM using market prices at period end(s))
                          - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates
                          - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s)
                          - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices
                          - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date

The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date:

--value=cost
    Convert amounts to cost, using the prices recorded in transactions.

--value=then
    Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, using market prices on each posting's date. This is currently supported only by the print and register commands.

--value=end
    Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, using market prices on the last day of the report period (or if unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod.

--value=now
    Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity using current market prices (as of when report is generated).

--value=YYYY-MM-DD
    Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity using market prices on this date.

To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part: a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: --value=now,EUR. hledger will do its best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing market prices as described above.

  More valuation examples

Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as seen with print:

    P 2000-01-01 A  1 B
    P 2000-02-01 A  2 B
    P 2000-03-01 A  3 B
    P 2000-04-01 A  4 B
    2000-01-01
      (a)      1 A @ 5 B
    2000-02-01
      (a)      1 A @ 6 B
    2000-03-01
      (a)      1 A @ 7 B

Show the cost of each posting:

    $ hledger -f- print --value=cost
    2000-01-01
        (a)             5 B
    2000-02-01
        (a)             6 B
    2000-03-01
        (a)             7 B

Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29):

    $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03
    2000-01-01
        (a)             2 B
    2000-02-01
        (a)             2 B

With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last day of the journal (2000-03-01):

    $ hledger -f- print --value=end
    2000-01-01
        (a)             3 B
    2000-02-01
        (a)             3 B
    2000-03-01
        (a)             3 B

Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today):

    $ hledger -f- print --value=now
    2000-01-01
        (a)             4 B
    2000-02-01
        (a)             4 B
    2000-03-01
        (a)             4 B

Show the value on 2000/01/15:

    $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15
    2000-01-01
        (a)             1 B
    2000-02-01
        (a)             1 B
    2000-03-01
        (a)             1 B

You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising:

    P 2000-01-01 A 2B
    2000-01-01
      a  1B
      b

    $ hledger print -x -X A
    2000-01-01
        a               0
        b               0

Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive specifying a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A:

    P 2000-01-01 A 2B
    commodity 0.00A
    2000-01-01
      a  1B
      b

    $ hledger print -X A
    2000-01-01
        a           0.50A
        b          -0.50A

  Effect of valuation on reports

Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. Related: #329, #1083.

Report type | -B, --value=cost | -V, -X | --value=then | --value=end | --value=DATE, --value=now
print |  |  |  |  |
posting amounts | cost | value at report end or today | value at posting date | value at report or journal end | value at DATE/today
balance assertions / assignments | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged
register |  |  |  |  |
starting balance (with -H) | cost | value at day before report or journal start | not supported | value at day before report or journal start | value at DATE/today
posting amounts (no report interval) | cost | value at report end or today | value at posting date | value at report or journal end | value at DATE/today
summary posting amounts (with report interval) | summarised cost | value at period ends | sum of postings in interval, valued at interval start | value at period ends | value at DATE/today
running total/average | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values
balance (bs, bse, cf, is..) |  |  |  |  |
balances (no report interval) | sums of costs | value at report end or today of sums of postings | not supported | value at report or journal end of sums of postings | value at DATE/today of sums of postings
balances (with report interval) | sums of costs | value at period ends of sums of postings | not supported | value at period ends of sums of postings | value at DATE/today of sums of postings
starting balances (with report interval and -H) | sums of costs of postings before report start | sums of postings before report start | not supported | sums of postings before report start | sums of postings before report start
budget amounts with --budget | like balances | like balances | not supported | like balances | like balances
grand total (no report interval) | sum of displayed values | sum of displayed values | not supported | sum of displayed values | sum of displayed values
row totals/averages (with report interval) | sums/averages of displayed values | sums/averages of displayed values | not supported | sums/averages of displayed values | sums/averages of displayed values
column totals | sums of displayed values | sums of displayed values | not supported | sums of displayed values | sums of displayed values
grand total/average | sum/average of column totals | sum/average of column totals | not supported | sum/average of column totals | sum/average of column totals

Glossary:

cost
    calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s).

value
    market value using available market price declarations, or the unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found.

report start
    the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or date:, otherwise today.

report or journal start
    the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, otherwise today.

report end
    the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, otherwise today.

report or journal end
    the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise today.

report interval
    a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperiods).

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

accounts, a
Show account names.

This command lists account names, either declared with account directives (--declared), posted to (--used), or both (the 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 or -N.

Examples:

    $ hledger accounts
    assets:bank:checking
    assets:bank:saving
    assets:cash
    expenses:food
    expenses:supplies
    income:gifts
    income:salary
    liabilities:debts

  activity

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.

Examples:

    $ hledger activity --quarterly
    2008-01-01 **
    2008-04-01 *******
    2008-07-01
    2008-10-01 **

  add

add
Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments will be used as default inputs for the first N prompts.

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 (by description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) 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 go one step backward.

•   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 go one step backward.
    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> $

On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056).

  aregister

aregister, areg
Show transactions affecting a particular account, and the account's running balance.

aregister shows the transactions affecting a particular account (and its subaccounts), from the point of view of that account. Each line shows:

•   the transaction's (or posting's, see below) date

•   the names of the other account(s) involved

•   the net change to this account's balance

•   the account's historical running balance (including balance from transactions before the report start date).

With aregister, each line represents a whole transaction - as in hledger-ui, hledger-web, and your bank statement. By contrast, the register command shows individual postings, across all accounts. You might prefer aregister for reconciling with real-world asset/liability accounts, and register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses.

An account must be specified as the first argument, which should be the full account name or an account pattern (regular expression). aregister will show transactions in this account (the first one matched) and any of its subaccounts.

Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the transactions shown.

Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add the -E/--empty flag to show them.

  aregister and custom posting dates

Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be shown, if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report period. (And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This ensures that aregister can show an accurate historical running balance, matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments.

To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom dates, it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong.

  Output format

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and json.

Examples:

Show all transactions and historical running balance in the first account whose name contains "checking":

    $ hledger areg checking

Show transactions and historical running balance in all asset accounts during july:

    $ hledger areg assets date:jul

  balance

balance, bal, b
Show accounts and their balances.

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, largest first.

"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

In terminal output, when colour is enabled, the balance command shows negative amounts in red.

  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.

  Percentages

With -% or --percent, balance reports show each account's value expressed as a percentage of the column's total. This is useful to get an overview of the relative sizes of account balances. For example to obtain an overview of expenses:

    $ hledger balance expenses -%
                 100.0 %  expenses
                  50.0 %    food
                  50.0 %    supplies
    --------------------
                 100.0 %

Note that --tree does not have an effect on -%. The percentages are always relative to the total sum of each column, they are never relative to the parent account.

Since the percentages are relative to the columns sum, it is usually not useful to calculate percentages if the signs of the amounts are mixed. Although the results are technically correct, they are most likely useless. Especially in a balance report that sums up to zero (eg hledger balance -B) all percentage values will be zero.

This flag does not work if the report contains any mixed commodity accounts. If there are mixed commodity accounts in the report be sure to use -V or -B to coerce the report into using a single commodity.

  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

Note that --cumulative or --historical/-H disable --row-total/-T, since summing end balances generally does not make sense.

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)

The --transpose flag can be used to exchange the rows and columns of a multicolumn report.

When showing multicommodity amounts, multicolumn balance reports will elide any amounts which have more than two commodities, since otherwise columns could get very wide. The --no-elide flag disables this. Hiding totals with the -N/--no-total flag can also help reduce the width of multicommodity reports.

When the report is still too wide, a good workaround is to pipe it into less -RS (-R for colour, -S to chop long lines). Eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less -RS.

  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:
                          ||                      Nov                       Dec
    ======================++====================================================
     assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
     assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
     assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
     expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]    $565 [ 118% of   $480]
     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]       0 [              0]

This is different from a normal balance report in several ways:

•   Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, by default.

•   In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: budget goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.)

•   All parent accounts are always shown, even in flat mode. Eg assets, assets:bank, and expenses above.

•   Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, even in flat mode.

This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg above, the expenses actual amount includes the gifts and supplies transactions, but the expenses:gifts and expenses:supplies accounts are not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared.

This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the -E/--empty flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted ones, giving the full picture. Eg:

    $ hledger balance -M --budget --empty
    Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31:
                          ||                      Nov                       Dec
    ======================++====================================================
     assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
     assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
     assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480]
     expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]    $565 [ 118% of   $480]
     expenses:bus         ||    $49 [  98% of    $50]     $53 [ 106% of    $50]
     expenses:food        ||   $396 [  99% of   $400]    $412 [ 103% of   $400]
     expenses:gifts       ||      0                      $100
     expenses:movies      ||    $30 [ 100% of    $30]       0 [   0% of    $30]
     expenses:supplies    ||    $20                         0
     income               ||  $1950 [  98% of  $2000]   $2100 [ 105% of  $2000]
    ----------------------++----------------------------------------------------
                          ||      0 [              0]       0 [              0]

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:
                          ||                      Nov                       Dec
    ======================++====================================================
     assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960]
     assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960]
     assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960]
     expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]   $1060 [ 110% of   $960]
     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]       0 [              0]

For more examples, see Budgeting and Forecasting.

  Nested budgets

You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then budget(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their parent, much like account balances behave.

In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any account, all its parents would have budget as well.

To illustrate this, consider the following budget:

    ~ monthly from 2019/01
        expenses:personal             $1,000.00
        expenses:personal:electronics    $100.00
        liabilities

With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly means that budget for both expenses:personal and expenses is $1100.

Transactions in expenses:personal:electronics will be counted both towards its $100 budget and $1100 of expenses:personal , and transactions in any other subaccount of expenses:personal would be counted towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal.

For example, let's consider these transactions:

    ~ monthly from 2019/01
        expenses:personal             $1,000.00
        expenses:personal:electronics    $100.00
        liabilities
    2019/01/01 Google home hub
        expenses:personal:electronics          $90.00
        liabilities                           $-90.00
    2019/01/02 Phone screen protector
        expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades          $10.00
        liabilities
    2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket
        expenses:personal:train tickets       $153.00
        liabilities
    2019/01/03 Flowers
        expenses:personal          $30.00
        liabilities

As you can see, we have transactions in expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades and expenses:personal:train tickets, and since both of these accounts are without explicitly defined budget, these transactions would be counted towards budgets of expenses:personal:electronics and expenses:personal accordingly:

    $ hledger balance --budget -M
    Budget performance in 2019/01:
                                   ||                           Jan
    ===============================++===============================
     expenses                      ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
     expenses:personal             ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
     expenses:personal:electronics ||  $100.00 [ 100% of   $100.00]
     liabilities                   || $-283.00 [  26% of $-1100.00]
    -------------------------------++-------------------------------
                                   ||        0 [                 0]

And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and consumption:

    $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty
    Budget performance in 2019/01:
                                            ||                           Jan
    ========================================++===============================
     expenses                               ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
     expenses:personal                      ||  $283.00 [  26% of  $1100.00]
     expenses:personal:electronics          ||  $100.00 [ 100% of   $100.00]
     expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades ||   $10.00
     expenses:personal:train tickets        ||  $153.00
     liabilities                            || $-283.00 [  26% of $-1100.00]
    ----------------------------------------++-------------------------------
                                            ||        0 [                 0]

  Output format

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, (multicolumn non-budget reports only) html, and (experimental) json.

  balancesheet

balancesheet, bs
This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending balances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use the balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

The asset and liability accounts shown are those accounts declared with the Asset or Cash or Liability type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level asset or liability account (case insensitive, plurals allowed).

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 (and -T/--row-total, since summing end balances generally does not make sense). Instead of absolute values percentages can be displayed with -%.

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

  balancesheetequity

balancesheetequity, bse
This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending balances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

The asset, liability and equity accounts shown are those accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or Equity type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level asset, liability or equity account (case insensitive, plurals allowed).

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

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

  cashflow

cashflow, cf
This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid) assets. Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

The "cash" accounts shown are those accounts declared with the Cash type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level asset account (case insensitive, plural allowed) which do not have fixed, investment, receivable or A/R in their 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. Instead of absolute values percentages can be displayed with -%.

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

  check-dates

check-dates
Check that transactions are sorted by increasing date. With --date2, checks secondary dates instead. With --strict, dates must also be unique. With a query, only matched transactions' dates are checked. Reads the default journal file, or another specified with -f.

  check-dupes

check-dupes
Reports account names having the same leaf but different prefixes. In other words, two or more leaves that are categorized differently. Reads the default journal file, or another specified as an argument.

An example: http://stefanorodighiero.net/software/hledger-dupes.html

  close

close, equity
Prints a "closing balances" transaction and an "opening balances" transaction that bring account balances to and from zero, respectively. These can be added to your journal file(s), eg to bring asset/liability balances forward into a new journal file, or to close out revenues/expenses to retained earnings at the end of a period.

You can print just one of these transactions by using the --close or --open flag. You can customise their descriptions with the --close-desc and --open-desc options.

One amountless posting to "equity:opening/closing balances" is added to balance the transactions, by default. You can customise this account name with --close-acct and --open-acct; if you specify only one of these, it will be used for both.

With --x/--explicit, the equity posting's amount will be shown. And if it involves multiple commodities, a posting for each commodity will be shown, as with the print command.

With --interleaved, the equity postings are shown next to the postings they balance, which makes troubleshooting easier.

By default, transaction prices in the journal are ignored when generating the closing/opening transactions. With --show-costs, this cost information is preserved (balance -B reports will be unchanged after the transition). Separate postings are generated for each cost in each commodity. Note this can generate very large journal entries, if you have many foreign currency or investment transactions.

  close usage

If you split your journal files by time (eg yearly), you will typically run this command at the end of the year, and save the closing transaction as last entry of the old file, and the opening transaction as the first entry of the new file. This makes the files self contained, so that correct balances are reported no matter which of them are loaded. Ie, if you load just one file, the balances are initialised correctly; or if you load several files, the redundant closing/opening transactions cancel each other out. (They will show up in print or register reports; you can exclude them with a query like not:desc:'(opening|closing) balances'.)

If you're running a business, you might also use this command to "close the books" at the end of an accounting period, transferring income statement account balances to retained earnings. (You may want to change the equity account name to something like "equity:retained earnings".)

By default, the closing transaction is dated yesterday, the balances are calculated as of end of yesterday, and the opening transaction is dated today. To close on some other date, use: hledger close -e OPENINGDATE. Eg, to close/open on the 2018/2019 boundary, use -e 2019. You can also use -p or date:PERIOD (any starting date is ignored).

Both transactions will include balance assertions for the closed/reopened accounts. You probably shouldn't use status or realness filters (like -C or -R or status:) with this command, or the generated balance assertions will depend on these flags. Likewise, if you run this command with --auto, the balance assertions will probably always require --auto.

Examples:

Carrying asset/liability balances into a new file for 2019:

    $ hledger close -f 2018.journal -e 2019 assets liabilities --open
        # (copy/paste the output to the start of your 2019 journal file)
    $ hledger close -f 2018.journal -e 2019 assets liabilities --close
        # (copy/paste the output to the end of your 2018 journal file)

Now:

    $ hledger bs -f 2019.journal                   # one file - balances are correct
    $ hledger bs -f 2018.journal -f 2019.journal   # two files - balances still correct
    $ hledger bs -f 2018.journal not:desc:closing  # to see year-end balances, must exclude closing txn

Transactions spanning the closing date can complicate matters, breaking balance assertions:

    2018/12/30 a purchase made in 2018, clearing the following year
        expenses:food          5
        assets:bank:checking  -5  ; [2019/1/2]

Here's one way to resolve that:

    ; in 2018.journal:
    2018/12/30 a purchase made in 2018, clearing the following year
        expenses:food          5
        liabilities:pending
    ; in 2019.journal:
    2019/1/2 clearance of last year's pending transactions
        liabilities:pending    5 = 0
        assets:checking

  codes

codes
List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed.

This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in the order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional value written in parentheses between the date and description, often used to store a cheque number, order number or similar.

Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty codes will not be shown by default. With the -E/--empty flag, they will be printed as blank lines.

You can add a query to select a subset of transactions.

Examples:

    1/1 (123)
     (a)  1
    1/1 ()
     (a)  1
    1/1
     (a)  1
    1/1 (126)
     (a)  1

    $ hledger codes
    123
    124
    126

    $ hledger codes -E
    123
    124
    126

  commodities

commodities
List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal.

  descriptions

descriptions
List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions.

This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transactions.

Example:

    $ hledger descriptions
    Store Name
    Gas Station | Petrol
    Person A

  diff

diff
Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in the other.

More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either file, it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts the same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when multiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry.

This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree about the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your journal to find out the cause.

Examples:

    $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro
    These transactions are in the first file only:
    2014/01/01 Opening Balances
        assets:bank:giro              EUR ...
        ...
        equity:opening balances       EUR -...
    These transactions are in the second file only:

  files

files
List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown.

  help

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.

Examples:

    $ hledger help
    Please choose a manual by typing "hledger help MANUAL" (a substring is ok).
    Manuals: hledger hledger-ui hledger-web 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

import
Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to the main journal file. Or with --dry-run, just print the transactions that would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' transactions as imported, without actually importing any.

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

  Importing balance assignments

Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit (like hledger print -x). This means that any balance assignments in imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import:

    $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE

(If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, please test it and send a pull request.)

  incomestatement

incomestatement, is

This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements.

The revenue and expense accounts shown are those accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type, or otherwise all accounts under a top-level revenue or income or expense account (case insensitive, plurals allowed).

Example:

    $ 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. Instead of absolute values percentages can be displayed with -%.

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experimental) json.

  notes

notes
List the unique notes that appear in transactions.

This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. The note is the part of the transaction description after a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description).

Example:

    $ hledger notes
    Petrol
    Snacks

  payees

payees
List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions.

This command lists the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description).

Example:

    $ hledger payees
    Store Name
    Gas Station
    Person A

  prices

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. Price amounts are always displayed with their full precision.

  print

print, txns, p
Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date.

The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the journal file in date order, tidily formatted. With --date2, transactions are sorted by secondary date instead.

print's output is always a valid hledger journal.
It preserves all transaction information, but it does not preserve directives or inter-transaction comments

    $ 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

Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is preserved. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will not appear in the output. Similarly, when a transaction price is implied but not written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the -x/--explicit flag to make all amounts and transaction prices explicit, which can be useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and robust against data entry errors. -x is also implied by using any of -B,-V,-X,--value.

Note, -x/--explicit will cause postings with a multi-commodity amount (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an implicit amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, keeping the output parseable.

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 the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) json and sql.

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-unique
Print transactions which do not reuse an already-seen description.

Example:

    $ cat unique.journal
    1/1 test
     (acct:one)  1
    2/2 test
     (acct:two)  2
    $ LEDGER_FILE=unique.journal hledger print-unique
    (-f option not supported)
    2015/01/01 test
        (acct:one)             1

  register

register, reg, r
Show postings and their running total.

The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in date order, with their running total or running historical balance. (See also the aregister command, which shows matched transactions in a specific account.)

register normally shows line per posting, but note that multi-commodity amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity).

It 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

With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead.

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.

The --invert flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used on an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative numbers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account together with the related account:

    $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking

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 (won't display correctly in --help):

    <--------------------------------- 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, & description width 40

This command also supports the output destination and output format options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) json.

  register-match

register-match
Print the one posting whose transaction description is closest to DESC, in the style of the register command. If there are multiple equally good matches, it shows the most recent. Query options (options, not arguments) can be used to restrict the search space. Helps ledger-autosync detect already-seen transactions when importing.

  rewrite

rewrite
Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print --auto.

This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It reads the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but adds one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. The posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing transaction's first posting amount.

Examples:

    $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33  ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts)  $100'
    $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts)  *-1"'
    $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger

rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like:

    = ^income amt:<0 date:2017
      (liabilities:tax)  *0.33  ; tax on income
      (reserve:grocery)  *0.25  ; reserve 25% for grocery
      (reserve:)  *0.25  ; reserve 25% for grocery

Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the two spaces between account and amount.

More:

    $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY]        --add-posting "ACCT  AMTEXPR" ...
    $ hledger rewrite -- ^income        --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33'
    $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts)  *-1"'
    $ hledger rewrite -- ^income        --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency)  *0.25 JPY; diversify'

Argument for --add-posting option is a usual posting of transaction with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can use '*' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's commodity.

  Re-write rules in a file

During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transactions" found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this operations in command line you can put them in a journal file.

    $ rewrite-rules.journal

Make contents look like this:

    = ^income
        (liabilities:tax)  *.33
    = expenses:gifts
        budget:gifts  *-1
        assets:budget  *1

Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in transactions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you want to match the posting to add new ones.

    $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal

This is something similar to the commands pipeline:

    $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33' \
      | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts      --add-posting 'budget:gifts  *-1'       \
                                                    --add-posting 'assets:budget  *1'       \
      > rewritten-tidy-output.journal

It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added postings.

  Diff output format

To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may find useful output in form of unified diff.

    $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax)  *.33'

Output might look like:

    --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal
    +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal
    @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@
     2008/01/01 income
    -    assets:bank:checking  $1
    +    assets:bank:checking            $1
         income:salary
    +    (liabilities:tax)                0
    @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@
     2008/06/01 gift
    -    assets:bank:checking  $1
    +    assets:bank:checking            $1
         income:gifts
    +    (liabilities:tax)                0

If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions containing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that multiple files might be update according to list of input files specified via --file options and include directives inside of these files.

Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output from hledger print.

See also:

https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99

  rewrite vs. print --auto

This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same thing, but with these differences:

•   with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all other files. print --auto uses standard directive scoping; rules affect only child files.

•   rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are printed. print --auto's query limits which transactions are printed.

•   rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. print --auto applies rules specified in the journal.

  roi

roi
Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on your investments.

This command assumes that you have account(s) that hold nothing but your investments and whenever you record current appraisal/valuation of these investments you offset unrealized profit and loss into account(s) that, again, hold nothing but unrealized profit and loss.

Any transactions affecting balance of investment account(s) and not originating from unrealized profit and loss account(s) are assumed to be your investments or withdrawals.

At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an account name) to select your investments with --inv, and another query to identify your profit and loss transactions with --pnl.

It will compute and display the internalized rate of return (IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before display, regardless of the length of reporting interval.

  stats

stats
Show some journal statistics.

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.

Example:

    $ 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 ($)
    Market prices            : 12 ($)

This command also supports output destination and output format selection.

  tags

tags
List the unique tag names used in the journal. With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching the regular expression (case insensitive) are shown. With QUERY arguments, only transactions matching the query are considered.

With the --values flag, the tags' unique values are listed instead.

With --parsed flag, all tags or values are shown in the order they are parsed from the input data, including duplicates.

With -E/--empty, any blank/empty values will also be shown, otherwise they are omitted.

  test

test
Run built-in unit tests.

This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will be non-zero.

This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report as a bug!

This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -- (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, with ANSI colour codes disabled:

    $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never

For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- --help currently doesn't show them).

  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.

Two important add-ons are the hledger-ui and hledger-web user interfaces. These are maintained and released along with hledger:

  ui

hledger-ui provides an efficient terminal interface.

  web

hledger-web provides a simple web interface.

Third party add-ons, maintained separately from hledger, include:

  iadd

hledger-iadd is a more interactive, terminal UI replacement for the add command.

  interest

hledger-interest generates interest transactions for an account according to various schemes.

A few more experimental or old add-ons can be found in hledger's bin/ directory. These are typically prototypes and not guaranteed to work.

ENVIRONMENT

LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. Default: ~/.hledger.journal (on windows, perhaps C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal).

A typical value is ~/DIR/YYYY.journal, where DIR is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is the current year. Or ~/DIR/current.journal, where current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal.

On Mac computers, you can set this and other environment variables in a more thorough way that also affects applications started from the GUI (say, an Emacs dock icon). Eg on MacOS Catalina I have a ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist file containing

    {
      "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal"
    }

To see the effect you may need to killall Dock, or reboot.

COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the full terminal width.

NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not use ANSI color codes in terminal output. This overrides the --color/--colour option.

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).

LIMITATIONS

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.

On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa.

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.

Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid argument (invalid character)"
Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii characters.

To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which supports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system.

Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux:

    $ file my.journal
    my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text         # the file is UTF8-encoded
    $ echo $LANG
    C                                      # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8
    $ locale -a                            # which locales are installed ?
    C
    en_US.utf8                             # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use
    POSIX
    $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print   # ensure it is used for this command

If available, C.UTF-8 will also work. If your preferred locale isn't listed by locale -a, you might need to install it. Eg on Ubuntu/Debian:

    $ 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

Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell:

    $ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile
    $ bash --login

Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the difference on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) allow variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact:

    $ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf
    en_US.UTF-8
    $ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print

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) 2007-2019 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