- There's just not a lot of time, that crazy AI explosion going on all around us... that's where I'm spending time for the past 10 years and it doesn't look like it's abating - One future day soon enough I'll have some years off and will have another go at all those v3 ideas Sorry if the docs are out-of-date, read the mailing-list and source for now. Maybe one day we can get the AI to review all of it and make it up-to-date
On Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 6:47 AM M Lell <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear all, > > I am very glad that I have found beancount, it helps me a lot! However, it > also has a steep learning curve for beginners, and I have found myself to > study the code at the end to find out how to use it. This is only possible > for me because I have some free time left at the moment, most users will > want to use beancount in order to save time, not to spend hours in trying > to understand it when they should be getting their bookkeeping done, which > is already a chore. I think, this is in large part due to issues with the > documentation. I am quite proficient in Python, however, I am struggling > since one year to completely understand the complete workflow of beancount > and are working around by writing scripts for myself that convert CSVs to > Beancount format without using any of the Beancount tooling. It seems that > several other users are having problems, too [rd1][rd2]. > > I for myself have the following main issues: > > 1. Documentation for data import is outdated (beancount.ingest [bc1]), > still referring to the old beancount-ingest method, but bean-ingest is not > included anymore with the version 3.x published on pip. Moreover, it only > provides a full-fledged bells-and-whistles solution, including archiving > etc. There is no "simple first step". > 2. There is no comprehensive documentation of all functions. The BQL docs > [bc2] tell me to use `help from` etc., in `bean-query`. But the > documentation there is not sufficient, as the parameter meanings are not > explained; for functions like date_bin(str, date, date) or getprice(str, > str, date), their meaning is not self-explanatory. > > There are already proposals to improve it, for example: > > 1. User "Alen Šiljak" has made several comments and suggestions to the > beangulp google doc, which have not been adressed since end of May 2025. I > think it would be great if the author could accept them, even if they might > not be perfect, they are definitely an improvement. > 2. I have proposed extensions to the function documentation in > `beanquery`[bq1] which have been criticized for being mostly documentation > and not code. So there seems to be disagreement between the google docs and > the beanquery project as to where the function documentation actually > should live. So it would be great if the maintainers could find some > agreement here. > > In the current state, it was a frustrating experience for me to learn my > ways around beancount and it is also frustrating to see such a valuable > program being hampered by such issues which remain unsolved despite > community efforts to improve it. Could you provide some direction for me > what I should do that would be most helpful for you in order to improve the > documentation? > > Best wishes, > Moritz > > [rd1]: > https://www.reddit.com/r/plaintextaccounting/comments/182zxe0/absolute_beginner_guide_for_beancount_importers/ > [rd2]: > https://www.reddit.com/r/beancount/comments/1f5hapm/beangulp_or_ingest/ > [bc1]: https://beancount.github.io/docs/importing_external_data.html > [bc2]: > https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_query_language.html#simple-functions > [bq1]: https://github.com/beancount/beanquery/pull/263 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/d15f713e-611a-415c-98d3-92b63f2d1cfen%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/d15f713e-611a-415c-98d3-92b63f2d1cfen%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhPZCo%3Dqkz4YPii%2BE3BRgTr%2BbQFGh9yJTnZ%3D%2B14jUwzQ9g%40mail.gmail.com.
