Spreadsheet Reader

Hackafé maintains a spreadsheet for purchases and payments. Oftentimes, one roommate will make a large purchase meant to be shared by others. We record these in a spreadsheet, which we the read_sheet.py tool can read and translate into a Ledger journal. One can then produce reports automatically using Ledger.

To see a sample report, run the following command to generate the journal

read_sheet.py --purchases purchases.csv.sample \
              --payments payments.csv.sample   \
              --header header.ledger.sample    \
              > sample.ledger

To create reports, try some of the following.

ledger -f sample.ledger balance --real
ledger -f sample.ledger balance Alice
ledger -f sample.ledger register
ledger -f sample.ledger register Expenses

Producing Reports

Ledger can generate an of very interesting reports. Some useful ones are as follows.

Show How Much Alice is Owed

The value will be negative if she is owed money.

ledger -f sample.ledger balance Alice

Show Purchase History

ledger -f sample.ledger register ^Expenses

Automatic Modifiers, Budgeting, and the Header File

Ledger has the ability to modify transactions automatically, forecast costs, and do other magic. This can be implemented by writing Ledger-format automated transactions and periodic transactions in the static header file, which can be included in the output ledger file using the --header option. (By default, this is header.ledger.)