Hi Oliver.. I didn't understand all points of your question but here's how I bill time with hledger. John might say more
about ways to do it with ledger 2.6 or 3.
1. I use timeclock.el, plus some custom key bindings, to record work sessions
in my ~/.timelog file.
2. at billing time (first of the month) I query the timelog, something like:
$ hledger -f $TIMELOG register -p 'weekly in aug' --depth 4 -E client1
not:unbilled
2009/08/03 - 2009/08/09 TI:work:jobs:client1 12.4h 12.4h
2009/08/17 - 2009/08/23 TI:work:jobs:client1 0.6h 13.0h
2009/08/24 - 2009/08/30 TI:work:jobs:client1 6.8h 19.8h
2009/08/31 - 2009/09/06 TI:work:jobs:client1 1.5h 21.3h
3. I send an invoice to the client, including the above info
4. I add an invoice entry to my (separate) ~/.ledger file, using the total
hours above:
2009/9/5 (20090905c1) client1 invoice
income:consulting:client1 -21.3h @ $90 ; august
assets:accounts receivable:client1 $1917 ; I print then add
the reported total for readability
5. When payment is received, I add a payment entry to the ledger:
2009/9/15[=9/17] * (20090905c1) client1 payment
assets:accounts receivable:client1 $-1917
assets:bank:bank1:checking
By querying income or receivable accounts in various ways I can find out what I've earned, billed, received, or not
received.
There must be better ways, but that's my current process; a separate timelog and ledger, a certain amount of manual
work, but works for me. I hope it gives you some ideas.
-Simon
[1] to be precise I use "lastmonth register --depth 4 ...". lastmonth is a bash alias for "hours -p lastmonth". hours is
a symbolic link to the hledger binary, which selects $TIMELOG automatically.
[2] hledger always reports time in hours.
[3] the dates are "check received" and "check deposited". Specifying the latter makes my daily checking account balance
report more accurate, which helps with reconciling.
