hledger is a plain text accounting tool built with Haskell. It embraces the LEDGER text format, which tracks cash flow using the double entry method.
By default, hledger uses your .hledger.journal file in
your home directory. This can be changed in your shellrc file or with a
symlink.
A basic ledger looks like this example from the documentation:
2023-01-01 opening balances on january 1st
assets:checking $1000 ; a posting, increasing assets:checking's balance by $1000
assets:cash $100 ; write at least 2 spaces between account name and amount
liabilities $0
equity $-1100 ; each transaction must sum to zero
2023-03-05 client payment
assets:checking $2000
revenues:consulting $-2000 ; revenues/liabilities/equity normally appear negative
2023-03-20 Sprouts
expenses:food:groceries $100
assets:cash $40
assets:checking ; a missing amount will be inferred ($-140 here)Per the double entry accounting method, every ledger entry must be a zero sum. You must list both the paying and receiving accounts.
Transactions can be imported via CSVs. In order to do so, you need a
CSV rules file with the same name as the file you want to import.
Notably, this feature seems to be optimized for scripting with a
MAKEFILE over one-time imports. Imports can be re-run from the same
file, as hledger keeps track of previously imported transactions in a
.latest.yourfile.csv.