Level up your plain-text accounting.

🗂️ Step 7: Organize With Accounts & Hierarchies

Ledger accounts are hierarchical. Use colons to create subaccounts for detailed tracking.

Example:

2025/08/01 Online course
    Expenses:Education:Courses     $30.00
    Assets:Bank:Checking         -$30.00

Tip: ledger balance Expenses rolls up all subaccounts under Expenses.

📅 Step 8: Add Dates, Payees & Notes

You can include payees and more details:

2025/08/02 Amazon
    Expenses:Office:Supplies   $45.00  ; new mouse
    Assets:Bank:Checking      -$45.00

• The first word after the date is the payee/description.
• Add ; for notes.

🔄 Step 9: Split Transactions

Split expenses across categories or accounts:

2025/08/03 Lunch meeting
    Expenses:Food:Lunch         $12.00
    Expenses:Business:Meals     $18.00
    Assets:Bank:Checking       -$30.00

• Both food and business meal expenses are tracked.

💱 Step 10: Handling Multiple Currencies

Ledger supports multiple currencies. Specify with the symbol:

2025/08/04 PayPal transfer
    Assets:PayPal      €100.00
    Income:Freelance  -€100.00

Or mix currencies in a split:

2025/08/05 Stock purchase
    Assets:Investments:Stocks     $1000.00
    Assets:Bank:Checking         -$500.00
    Assets:Foreign:THB         -฿18,000.00

Ledger will track balances by currency.

📄 Step 11: Monthly Reports & Filtering

See expenses by month:

ledger -f my.ledger register Expenses --period 'last month'

Show a single account by month:

ledger -f my.ledger register Expenses:Groceries --monthly

List all income this year:

ledger -f my.ledger register Income --period 'this year'

🔍 Step 12: Search & Tag Transactions

Add custom tags to transactions for easy searching:

2025/08/06 Taxi ; :client:projectX:
    Expenses:Travel:Taxi    $8.50
    Assets:Cash           -$8.50

Filter by tag:

ledger -f my.ledger register ^Expenses --grep projectX

📊 Step 13: Budgeting & Forecasting

Add periodic budgets to your file:

~ Monthly
    Expenses:Groceries    $400.00
    Expenses:Dining Out   $100.00

Check your spending against your budget:

ledger -f my.ledger budget

🔒 Step 14: Best Practices

• Back up your .ledger file regularly.

• Use version control (like Git) for a history of edits.

• Consistent naming for accounts keeps reports tidy.

• Validate your file:

  ledger -f my.ledger check
  

🏁 What’s Next?

• Explore ledger reports for more commands.
• Try importing data (CSV, bank exports) with Ledger tools.
• Look into GUIs like hledger-ui.