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> beancount wants everything to live in One Giant Journal file Actually, beancount supports include directive. See includes section [1] of the language syntax

by cobby 6y ago

> beancount wants everything to live in One Giant Journal file Actually, beancount supports include directive. See includes section [1] of the language syntax document [1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wAMVrKIA2qtRGmoVDSUBJGmYZSygUaR0uOMW1GV3YE0/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wAMVrKIA2qtRGmoVDSUBJGmY...

haberman 6y ago
Thanks for the reference. But a single transaction can span multiple financial institutions. Say you pay off a credit card. One half of the transaction comes from the credit card statement, the other half comes from your bank. The two halves sum to zero. My understanding is that the whole transaction has to live in one file with Beancount. This doesn't seem amenable to having each bank statement generate a single Beancount output file. But I could be wrong. I don't know how Beancount's importer works.
- freddie_mercury 6y ago
  If you really want to do that, there is a beancount plugin called ZeroSum that does it https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_plugins/tree/master/beancount_reds_plugins/zerosum https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_plugins/tree/mas...
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  Conceptually this is one transaction; from a book keeping (and beancount) perspective it is, or can be, two. Often (in the US) the dates are different- debit from the bank on day X, post to credit card on day X + 1 or X + 2. For my stuff I want the dates in beancount to reflect the dates on the respective statements, so that the balances, which are date-specific, match. So I capture these as two transactions. I do it as- debit the bank, credit the "ether", then debit the "ether" credit the credit card. Beancount just wants the postings within a literal transaction to sum to zero. If this conceptual transaction is split into two literal transactions, with some fictional bridge account in between, they can live in different beancount files.
- arnarbi 6y ago
  I use beancount, and a somewhat custom importer and categorizer. (happy to expand on those but this comment is about the multi-transaction). I have the categorizer send such transactions to a temporary "limbo account". So I have two transactions: # This TX is imported from checking acct statement: 2020-05-15 * "ACH Payment BankA credit card" Assets:BankA:Checking -500 Equity:Limbo:CreditCardPayments # This TX is imported from credit card statement: 2020-05-16 * "Payment applied THANK YOU" Liabilities:BankB:CreditCard 500 Equity:Limbo:CreditCardPayments In both cases the second posting is added by the automatic categorizer based on the description. After doing a bout of imports, I look at the Limbo account, which should always sum to zero. Sometimes the two TXs don't appear on the same day, so occasionally there's a temporary balance there but that's fine. I use the same to match up my direct deposits (one end from paystubs import, other from checking account), wire transfers between banks/brokerage, etc. I tend to put them in different subaccounts of "Equity:Limbo" so that I can more easily spot any discrepancies. Edit: Should've first read the previous reply that says the same thing!

by cobby 6y ago

haberman 6y ago

Thanks for the reference. But a single transaction can span multiple financial institutions. Say you pay off a credit card. One half of the transaction comes from the credit card statement, the other half comes from your bank. The two halves sum to zero. My understanding is that the whole transaction has to live in one file with Beancount. This doesn't seem amenable to having each bank statement generate a single Beancount output file. But I could be wrong. I don't know how Beancount's importer works.

freddie_mercury 6y ago
If you really want to do that, there is a beancount plugin called ZeroSum that does it https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_plugins/tree/master/beancount_reds_plugins/zerosum https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_plugins/tree/mas...
jonahbenton 6y ago
Conceptually this is one transaction; from a book keeping (and beancount) perspective it is, or can be, two. Often (in the US) the dates are different- debit from the bank on day X, post to credit card on day X + 1 or X + 2. For my stuff I want the dates in beancount to reflect the dates on the respective statements, so that the balances, which are date-specific, match. So I capture these as two transactions. I do it as- debit the bank, credit the "ether", then debit the "ether" credit the credit card. Beancount just wants the postings within a literal transaction to sum to zero. If this conceptual transaction is split into two literal transactions, with some fictional bridge account in between, they can live in different beancount files.
arnarbi 6y ago
I use beancount, and a somewhat custom importer and categorizer. (happy to expand on those but this comment is about the multi-transaction). I have the categorizer send such transactions to a temporary "limbo account". So I have two transactions: # This TX is imported from checking acct statement: 2020-05-15 * "ACH Payment BankA credit card" Assets:BankA:Checking -500 Equity:Limbo:CreditCardPayments # This TX is imported from credit card statement: 2020-05-16 * "Payment applied THANK YOU" Liabilities:BankB:CreditCard 500 Equity:Limbo:CreditCardPayments In both cases the second posting is added by the automatic categorizer based on the description. After doing a bout of imports, I look at the Limbo account, which should always sum to zero. Sometimes the two TXs don't appear on the same day, so occasionally there's a temporary balance there but that's fine. I use the same to match up my direct deposits (one end from paystubs import, other from checking account), wire transfers between banks/brokerage, etc. I tend to put them in different subaccounts of "Equity:Limbo" so that I can more easily spot any discrepancies. Edit: Should've first read the previous reply that says the same thing!