Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[Erik Hetzner]

On Tue, 02 Feb 2016 19:48:06 -0800,
John Hendy  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
> >
> > - Merging new transactions with previous transactions imported from the 
> > other side (e.g. a payment from a bank account to pay off on'es credit card 
> > will typically be imported from both the bank AND credit card accounts; you 
> > must merge the corresponding transactions together)
> >
> 
> Definitely. Moneydance allowed me to input an account, which would "link" 
> the transaction. Then I'd have to delete or merge the other account's 
> record of the same transaction.

One needn’t actually merge these. Here is what I do:

2015/12/31 Credit card payment
  Assets:Checking   -$100
  Transfer:AC->LCC   $100

2016/01/01 Payment received
  Liabilities:CreditCard $100
  Transfer:AC->LCC  -$100

Some kind person on the list pointed out this technique a while ago.

This makes import easier and allows for a difference in transit time. All
Transfer:* accounts should balance to $0, so you have an additional check that
everything is balancing out.

best, Erik
--
Sent from my free software system .

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Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[Martin Blais]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:30 PM, Michael Norrish 
wrote:

> One way to do two-stage cheques would be something like
>
> 2016/1/25 * My Favourite Shop
>   Expenses:Groceries   $100
>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks
>
> 2016/1/31 * Check clearing
>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks  $100
>   Assets:Checking Account
>
> You could assuredly add metadata to link the two transactions to be wrt
> some check #.
>

Yes, and I'm claiming that this linkage can probably be done by the
computer.





>
> Michael
>
> > On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:26, John Hendy  wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  wrote:
> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
> 
>  On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed
> once
> >>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around
> vs.
> >>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
> >>
> >>
> >> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically organize
> your
> >> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you (minus
> some
> >> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they
> appear in
> >> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount
> sorts
> >> everything by date so order doesn't matter).
> >
> >
> > So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
> > downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:
> >
> > 2010/12/01 * Checking balance
> >  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
> >  Equity:Unknown
> >
> > 2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
> >  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00
> >
> > 2011/01/02 Grocery Store
> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
> >  Equity:Unknown
> >
> > Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
> > categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
> > as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
> > need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
> > the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
> > of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
> > account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
> > for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.
> >
> > In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
> > ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
> > from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:
> >
> > - I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
> > purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
> > wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
> > (compared to having one transaction per payment)?
> >
> > - I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
> > bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
> > another negative?
> >
> > - I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
> > them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
> > through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
> > come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
> > the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
> > that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
> > missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.
> >
> > Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
> > usable noob state.
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> > John
> >
> > --
> >
> > ---
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Ledger" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to ledger-cli+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>
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Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[Martin Blais]

This is related to this:

https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/src/tip/src/python/beancount/plugins/tag_pending.py?at=default=file-view-default

See this thread for context:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/beancount/z9sPboW4U3c/EQk25vKcHDQJ



On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 1:42 AM, Martin Blais  wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:30 PM, Michael Norrish <
> michael.norr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> One way to do two-stage cheques would be something like
>>
>> 2016/1/25 * My Favourite Shop
>>   Expenses:Groceries   $100
>>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks
>>
>> 2016/1/31 * Check clearing
>>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks  $100
>>   Assets:Checking Account
>>
>> You could assuredly add metadata to link the two transactions to be wrt
>> some check #.
>>
>
> Yes, and I'm claiming that this linkage can probably be done by the
> computer.
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> > On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:26, John Hendy  wrote:
>> >
>> > On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy 
>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
>> 
>>  On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Greetings,
>> >
>> >
>> > [snip]
>> >
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed
>> once
>> >>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around
>> vs.
>> >>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically
>> organize your
>> >> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you
>> (minus some
>> >> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they
>> appear in
>> >> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount
>> sorts
>> >> everything by date so order doesn't matter).
>> >
>> >
>> > So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
>> > downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:
>> >
>> > 2010/12/01 * Checking balance
>> >  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
>> >  Equity:Unknown
>> >
>> > 2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
>> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
>> >  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00
>> >
>> > 2011/01/02 Grocery Store
>> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
>> >  Equity:Unknown
>> >
>> > Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
>> > categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
>> > as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
>> > need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
>> > the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
>> > of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
>> > account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
>> > for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.
>> >
>> > In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
>> > ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
>> > from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:
>> >
>> > - I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
>> > purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
>> > wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
>> > (compared to having one transaction per payment)?
>> >
>> > - I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
>> > bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
>> > another negative?
>> >
>> > - I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
>> > them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
>> > through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
>> > come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
>> > the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
>> > that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
>> > missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.
>> >
>> > Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
>> > usable noob state.
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > John
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > ---
>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Ledger" group.
>> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email to ledger-cli+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>> --
>> 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 beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>> To post to this 

Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[Michael Norrish]

One way to do two-stage cheques would be something like

2016/1/25 * My Favourite Shop
  Expenses:Groceries   $100
  Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks

2016/1/31 * Check clearing
  Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks  $100
  Assets:Checking Account

You could assuredly add metadata to link the two transactions to be wrt some 
check #.

Michael

> On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:26, John Hendy  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
 
 On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> 
> [snip]
> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed once
>>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around vs.
>>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
>> 
>> 
>> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically organize your
>> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you (minus some
>> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they appear in
>> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount sorts
>> everything by date so order doesn't matter).
> 
> 
> So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
> downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:
> 
> 2010/12/01 * Checking balance
>  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
>  Equity:Unknown
> 
> 2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
>  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
>  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00
> 
> 2011/01/02 Grocery Store
>  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
>  Equity:Unknown
> 
> Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
> categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
> as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
> need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
> the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
> of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
> account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
> for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.
> 
> In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
> ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
> from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:
> 
> - I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
> purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
> wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
> (compared to having one transaction per payment)?
> 
> - I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
> bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
> another negative?
> 
> - I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
> them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
> through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
> come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
> the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
> that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
> missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.
> 
> Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
> usable noob state.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> -- 
> 
> --- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Ledger" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to ledger-cli+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[David Glasser]

One downside to doing it this way is that before you enter the check
clearing transaction, Assets:Checking does not actually answer the question
"how much can I take out of my checking account without bouncing a check",
which surely is a very important use case.

--dave
On Feb 3, 2016 8:30 PM, "Michael Norrish"  wrote:

> One way to do two-stage cheques would be something like
>
> 2016/1/25 * My Favourite Shop
>   Expenses:Groceries   $100
>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks
>
> 2016/1/31 * Check clearing
>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks  $100
>   Assets:Checking Account
>
> You could assuredly add metadata to link the two transactions to be wrt
> some check #.
>
> Michael
>
> > On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:26, John Hendy  wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  wrote:
> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
> 
>  On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed
> once
> >>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around
> vs.
> >>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
> >>
> >>
> >> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically organize
> your
> >> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you (minus
> some
> >> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they
> appear in
> >> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount
> sorts
> >> everything by date so order doesn't matter).
> >
> >
> > So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
> > downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:
> >
> > 2010/12/01 * Checking balance
> >  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
> >  Equity:Unknown
> >
> > 2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
> >  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00
> >
> > 2011/01/02 Grocery Store
> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
> >  Equity:Unknown
> >
> > Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
> > categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
> > as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
> > need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
> > the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
> > of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
> > account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
> > for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.
> >
> > In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
> > ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
> > from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:
> >
> > - I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
> > purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
> > wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
> > (compared to having one transaction per payment)?
> >
> > - I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
> > bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
> > another negative?
> >
> > - I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
> > them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
> > through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
> > come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
> > the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
> > that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
> > missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.
> >
> > Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
> > usable noob state.
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> > John
> >
> > --
> >
> > ---
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Ledger" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to ledger-cli+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
> --
>
> ---
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> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
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>

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Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[Michael Norrish]

A balance command mentioning those two accounts would sum to the amount you 
want:

   ledger bal assets.checking liabilities:unprocessed

Michael

> On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:50, David Glasser  wrote:
> 
> One downside to doing it this way is that before you enter the check
> clearing transaction, Assets:Checking does not actually answer the question
> "how much can I take out of my checking account without bouncing a check",
> which surely is a very important use case.
> 
> --dave
> 
> On Feb 3, 2016 8:30 PM, "Michael Norrish"  > wrote:
> One way to do two-stage cheques would be something like
> 
> 2016/1/25 * My Favourite Shop
>   Expenses:Groceries   $100
>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks
> 
> 2016/1/31 * Check clearing
>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks  $100
>   Assets:Checking Account
> 
> You could assuredly add metadata to link the two transactions to be wrt some 
> check #.
> 
> Michael
> 
> > On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:26, John Hendy  > > wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  > > wrote:
> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy  >> > wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
> 
>  On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy   > wrote:
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed once
> >>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around vs.
> >>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
> >>
> >>
> >> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically organize 
> >> your
> >> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you (minus 
> >> some
> >> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they appear 
> >> in
> >> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount sorts
> >> everything by date so order doesn't matter).
> >
> >
> > So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
> > downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:
> >
> > 2010/12/01 * Checking balance
> >  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
> >  Equity:Unknown
> >
> > 2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
> >  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00
> >
> > 2011/01/02 Grocery Store
> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
> >  Equity:Unknown
> >
> > Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
> > categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
> > as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
> > need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
> > the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
> > of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
> > account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
> > for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.
> >
> > In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
> > ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
> > from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:
> >
> > - I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
> > purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
> > wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
> > (compared to having one transaction per payment)?
> >
> > - I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
> > bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
> > another negative?
> >
> > - I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
> > them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
> > through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
> > come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
> > the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
> > that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
> > missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.
> >
> > Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
> > usable noob state.
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> > John
> >
> > --
> >
> > ---
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> > "Ledger" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> > email to ledger-cli+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> > .
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout 
> > .
> 

Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[John Hendy]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy  wrote:

 Greetings,


[snip]

>>
>>
>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed once
>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around vs.
>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
>
>
> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically organize your
> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you (minus some
> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they appear in
> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount sorts
> everything by date so order doesn't matter).


So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:

2010/12/01 * Checking balance
  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
  Equity:Unknown

2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00

2011/01/02 Grocery Store
  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
  Equity:Unknown

Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.

In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:

- I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
(compared to having one transaction per payment)?

- I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
another negative?

- I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.

Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
usable noob state.


Thanks,
John

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Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[David Glasser]

Ah, sure, if there's a 1:1 mapping between unprocessed accounts and
main accounts.  (Perhaps Assets:Checking:Unprocessed Checks?)

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:32 PM, Michael Norrish
 wrote:
> A balance command mentioning those two accounts would sum to the amount you
> want:
>
>ledger bal assets.checking liabilities:unprocessed
>
> Michael
>
> On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:50, David Glasser  wrote:
>
> One downside to doing it this way is that before you enter the check
> clearing transaction, Assets:Checking does not actually answer the question
> "how much can I take out of my checking account without bouncing a check",
> which surely is a very important use case.
>
> --dave
>
> On Feb 3, 2016 8:30 PM, "Michael Norrish"  wrote:
>>
>> One way to do two-stage cheques would be something like
>>
>> 2016/1/25 * My Favourite Shop
>>   Expenses:Groceries   $100
>>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks
>>
>> 2016/1/31 * Check clearing
>>   Liabilities:Unprocessed Checks  $100
>>   Assets:Checking Account
>>
>> You could assuredly add metadata to link the two transactions to be wrt
>> some check #.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> > On 4 Feb 2016, at 15:26, John Hendy  wrote:
>> >
>> > On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Martin Blais  wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
>> 
>>  On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, John Hendy  wrote:
>> >
>> > Greetings,
>> >
>> >
>> > [snip]
>> >
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Huh. Yes, I'll definitely have to look into the emacs mode. I assumed
>> >>> once
>> >>> it was in ledger format it would be *a lot* harder to navigate around
>> >>> vs.
>> >>> just doing it while it's already in a spreadsheet format.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Definitely not, text is there for your pleasure. You typically organize
>> >> your
>> >> Ledger input file in the order that makes the most sense for you (minus
>> >> some
>> >> constraints: Ledger will report the transactions in the order they
>> >> appear in
>> >> the file and the balance assertions are computed as such. Beancount
>> >> sorts
>> >> everything by date so order doesn't matter).
>> >
>> >
>> > So, using the demo.ledger file as an example, if I run `convert` on my
>> > downloaded bank file, I'm going to get something like this:
>> >
>> > 2010/12/01 * Checking balance
>> >  Expenses:Unknown$1,000.00
>> >  Equity:Unknown
>> >
>> > 2010/12/20 * Organic Co-op
>> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 37.50  ; [=2011/01/01]
>> >  Equity:Unknown   $ -225.00
>> >
>> > 2011/01/02 Grocery Store
>> >  Expenses:Unknown $ 65.00
>> >  Equity:Unknown
>> >
>> > Would you just go through that and manually change all of those
>> > categories in ledger-mode? I still like starting from the bank .csv,
>> > as it's got transaction ids and the amounts already in there... all I
>> > need to do is add categories. It appears that `convert` defaults to
>> > the above. As this is the primary thing of interest to me, I was sort
>> > of surprised that ledger mode offered no pop-up minibuffer to edit the
>> > account, at least from perusing the manual page. I only see options
>> > for reconciling, reports, changing an amount, etc.
>> >
>> > In any case, `convert` got most of my stuff into ledger format and
>> > ledger-mode at least recognizes the blocks, so I'll likely just start
>> > from there. I still have *a lot* more reading to do... for example:
>> >
>> > - I noticed in the demo file, the co-op (which I snipped above)
>> > purchases were in one chunk vs. treated as separate transactions. I
>> > wouldn't default to this and am guessing it's just a preference thing
>> > (compared to having one transaction per payment)?
>> >
>> > - I still wrestle with deposits and withdrawals. Am I the payee? Is my
>> > bank? Does it matter as long as some assets category goes positive and
>> > another negative?
>> >
>> > - I'd love tracking checks *as we write them* vs. just waiting for
>> > them to appear. This used to really annoy me in Moneydance, as I'd go
>> > through the checkbook once a month to see what was written but not
>> > come through. Then I'd have to have these little note entries along
>> > the way to remind me what the total of uncashed checks were to-date so
>> > that the sums added up. I bet there was a better way in Moneydance I'd
>> > missed, and I'm positive there's one in ledger/beancount.
>> >
>> > Anyway, still taking it slow but feel like I'm starting to get to a
>> > usable noob state.
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > John
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > ---
>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> > Groups "Ledger" group.
>> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> > an email to 

Re: Getting started; assigning accounts to bank .csv data

[Martin Blais]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:48 AM, Erik Hetzner  wrote:

> On Tue, 02 Feb 2016 19:48:06 -0800,
> John Hendy  wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Monday, February 1, 2016 at 10:41:26 PM UTC-6, Martin Blais wrote:
> > >
> > > - Merging new transactions with previous transactions imported from the
> > > other side (e.g. a payment from a bank account to pay off on'es credit
> card
> > > will typically be imported from both the bank AND credit card
> accounts; you
> > > must merge the corresponding transactions together)
> > >
> >
> > Definitely. Moneydance allowed me to input an account, which would "link"
> > the transaction. Then I'd have to delete or merge the other account's
> > record of the same transaction.
>
> One needn’t actually merge these. Here is what I do:
>
> 2015/12/31 Credit card payment
>   Assets:Checking   -$100
>   Transfer:AC->LCC   $100
>
> 2016/01/01 Payment received
>   Liabilities:CreditCard $100
>   Transfer:AC->LCC  -$100
>
> Some kind person on the list pointed out this technique a while ago.
>
> This makes import easier and allows for a difference in transit time. All
> Transfer:* accounts should balance to $0, so you have an additional check
> that
> everything is balancing out.
>

I think it would be possible to process the stream of transactions and
identify close matches based on common accounts and nearby dates, and
automatically merge matching transactions into a single one, removing zero
balances. The dual operation is assigning individual dates on postings of a
single transaction and having the software split them up to obtain the
result you describe.

In either case, matching transactions should be linked automatically and it
should be possible to report on a set of matching transactions (a-la
"bean-doctor linked").

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