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I've been using ledger [0] in the past 2 years very successfully in keeping track of my personal finances. I've tried with many accounting apps, but the clarit

I've been using ledger [0] in the past 2 years very successfully in keeping track of my personal finances. I've tried with many accounting apps, but the clarity of the plain text, editing it with my preferred editor, and the capabilities of ledger (reading only!) are what kept me (I think). I also wrote an intro for ledger here [1]. [0] https://www.ledger-cli.org/ https://www.ledger-cli.org/ [1] https://sirodoht.com/blog/introduction-to-plain-text-accounting/ https://sirodoht.com/blog/introduction-to-plain-text-account...

gandalfgreybeer 6y ago
Thank you for the guide. Found it very helpful.
sundarurfriend 6y ago
Thanks for sharing the article. It's nice to get an intro from someone else also new to Ledger, which guarantees it starts from the very basics and makes for a good first step. The other "getting started" guide I found [1], for a contrast, starts with a whole ecosystem of scripts and a system in place for effective ledger use - which will be useful later, when I do want to get a full system going, but I've learnt it's better to start simple and stumble around, until I can put together the pieces of the system myself later (with theirs as a very useful reference). [1] https://rolfschr.github.io/gswl-book/latest.html#the-setup https://rolfschr.github.io/gswl-book/latest.html#the-setup
sundarurfriend 6y ago
Your section on single vs double-entry accounting, specifically: > We can neither create money out of thin air, nor make it disappear. Money has to come from somewhere and go somewhere. reminded me of the excellent "Accounting for Computer Scientists" by Martin Kleppmann [1], with a very useful and easy to remember mental model of this process. [1] https://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-computer-scientists.html https://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-compu...

gandalfgreybeer 6y ago

Thank you for the guide. Found it very helpful.

sundarurfriend 6y ago

Thanks for sharing the article. It's nice to get an intro from someone else also new to Ledger, which guarantees it starts from the very basics and makes for a good first step. The other "getting started" guide I found [1], for a contrast, starts with a whole ecosystem of scripts and a system in place for effective ledger use - which will be useful later, when I do want to get a full system going, but I've learnt it's better to start simple and stumble around, until I can put together the pieces of the system myself later (with theirs as a very useful reference). [1] https://rolfschr.github.io/gswl-book/latest.html#the-setup https://rolfschr.github.io/gswl-book/latest.html#the-setup

sundarurfriend 6y ago

Your section on single vs double-entry accounting, specifically: > We can neither create money out of thin air, nor make it disappear. Money has to come from somewhere and go somewhere. reminded me of the excellent "Accounting for Computer Scientists" by Martin Kleppmann [1], with a very useful and easy to remember mental model of this process. [1] https://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-computer-scientists.html https://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-compu...