Ledger, a command-line accounting system

Re:Ledger, a command-line accounting system by flatM on Wednesday November 04, 2015 @07:46PM (#10510859)

Is it possible to attach a receipt (say scanned PDFs) to a Ledger entry? I am interested in ledger, would like it to be the accounting system for my side business, a bit more bookkeeping feature such as the receipt attachment would be great for tax filing purpose.

Edit: I know that Ledger uses plain text for each entry. Though I kind of wonder how do you guys keep those receipts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ledger, a command-line accounting system by zachlatta on Thursday November 05, 2015 @12:12AM (#10511742)

We use Ledger for all of our accounting (it's not too much... yet) and we've been using comments in Ledger to keep track of our receipts.

Example:

    2015/02/05 Clipper Card
        Expenses:Transport:Public Transportation               $20
        Liabilities:Reimbursement:Zach Latta
        ; Receipt: 52fae6a40afaf2a79bfdef92f5e1b6d3.pdf

Each receipt filename is <md5 hash>.<extension> and they're all tracked in a private GitHub repository.

Here's a link to our repo with more examples: https://github.com/hackedu/finances/blob/master/main.ledger

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ledger, a command-line accounting system by cgb_ on Thursday November 05, 2015 @03:29AM (#10512249)

I do something similar, although I name my receipts/documents with yyyymmdd-friendlyname.pdf for ease of lookup.

For my IT consulting business, I also wrote a wrapper that rejects entries that don't have a receipt tag which allows me to catch any entries that I haven't complied 100% with my practices (and tax office won't get upset in an audit).

I also autogenerate the ledger entries from the receipt name (and prompt for description/expense account/$$ with logic for handling common items like fuel etc).

I've played with PDF metadata so my entire receipt scanning => ledger is automated from just the PDF document but haven't reached a satisfactory setup there.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ledger, a command-line accounting system by zrail on Wednesday November 04, 2015 @07:48PM (#10510869)

I do this by putting the PDFs in the same git repo as my ledger file, and then adding a filename to the entry as metadata:

  2015/11/04 * (12345) Walgreens
      ; receipt: /receipts/12345.pdf
      Expenses:Medical:RX          $10.00
      Liabilities:Credit Card

It isn't an attachment, strictly speaking, but you can get at it with scripts and such.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ledger, a command-line accounting system by flatM on Wednesday November 04, 2015 @07:51PM (#10510876)

That sounds simple and effective. Thanks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ledger, a command-line accounting system by andrewchambers on Wednesday November 04, 2015 @07:49PM (#10510872)

Just a comment with a link to a Dropbox file would work.

[ Parent | on HN ]