Adding budgeting

[saesh]

Hey @adept, this is more a discussion starter than an issue.

I followed the wiki and have a working setup with multiple years of transactions. This is already a great step up from my original setup.

I am having trouble adding budgeting to the system. Do you have any ideas how to start?

In my original setup I use YNAB style envelope budgeting using balances virtual postings and auto-postings, which work like this:

Every income goes automatically into an "available budget" using an auto-posting:

= assets:lloyds:current
    [assets:lloyds:current]   *-1
    [budget:available]         *1

Then, in my journal, budgeting into categories happened manually:

2019/12/26 salary
   assets:lloyds:current    €1000,00
   income:employer

2019/12/27 budget income from employer
    [budget:monthly:rent]     €500,00
    [budget:available]

And later the expense happens:

2019/12/29 pay rent
    assets:lloyds:current    -€500,00
    expenses:rent

With another auto-posting, when the expense happens, the budget gets automatically adjusted:

= expenses:rent
    [budget:monthly:rent]   *-1
    [budget:available]       *1

From this I could generate budget reports and make purchase decisions.

But hledger does not support auto-postings on balance adjusted accounts (opening and closing balances).

Any ideas on budgeting are welcome!

[simonmichael]

hledger does not support auto-postings on balance adjusted accounts (opening and closing balances).

Could you show a small example ?

[saesh]

Yes, see this commit.

If I run this command to see the balance of the budget I get:

$ hledger bal budget --auto -f all.journal
hledger: balance assignments cannot be used with accounts which are
posted to by transaction modifier rules (auto postings).
Please write the posting amount explicitly, or remove the rule.

account: assets:Lloyds:current

transaction:

2014/01/01 opening balances
    assets:Lloyds:current       = £100
    assets:cash                 = £150
    equity:opening balances

[saesh]

Ah, but I think I misunderstood the balanced auto postings. The account name must not match the rule account name. I can work around this issue by using virtual instead of accounts as a prefix in the auto-posting:

= assets:checking
    [virtual:checking]    *-1
    [budget:available]     *1

2019/01/01 salary
    assets:checking   =  500
    income:salary     = -500

Maybe this way I can add my budgeting system.

[simonmichael]

I'm not sure about your rules, but the error is easy to work around, just avoid balance assignments:

2014/01/01 opening balances
    assets:Lloyds:current      £100 = £100
    assets:cash                £150 = £150
    equity:opening balances

(The combination of balance assignments and auto posting rules is not solvable in general, so we don't allow it.)

[saesh]

Thanks @simonmichael for helping out! This solved my initial issue.

Now I can add (still manual) budgeting the way I am used to.

[saesh]

@adept I have a working setup with budgeting. It basically works like this:

• income to budgeted account goes to available budget
• on every income available money has to be budgeted manually into categories
• rules ensure expenses are deducted automatically from budgets
• automatic generation of budget balance report and monthly change to budgets

Are you interested in a PR with an additional chapter on budgeting?

[adept]

Hello, Sascha! Apologies for the late reply: start of the year was pretty hectic for me, and I barely have any spare CPU cycles for hledger or other OSS projects :( I have a half-done draft section on budgeting + forecasting (where you use periodic transactions to forecast your spendings, and once your spendings catch up with your forecast, it becomes your budget), but you approach sounds like something completely different. I would love to have your setup described, provided that you don't mind that your approach would not be the only one :) I basically want to have a section that says "This is how I do it", and another one "This is how Sacha Hagedorn does it", or maybe even do both approaches in a single section and budget one account your way, and one my way (if it is feasible). Anyway, I feel like I am getting too excited and getting ahead of myself :) I would love to see anything and everything you are willing to show me!

…

On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 6:45 AM Sascha Hagedorn ***@***.***> wrote: @adept <https://github.com/adept> I have a working setup with budgeting. It basically works like this: - income to budgeted account goes to available budget - on every income available money has to be budgeted manually into categories - rules ensure expenses are deducted automatically from budgets - automatic generation of budget balance report and monthly change to budgets Are you interested in a PR with an additional chapter on budgeting? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#8?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAA42KUIGJCQ55ZJ2RMZVTLRAJZQDA5CNFSM4KC2Y34KYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOEKJ3XTA#issuecomment-580107212>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAA42KWTQGEXTZUGB2HS423RAJZQDANCNFSM4KC2Y34A> .

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[saesh]

@adept Alright, cool, I will prepare something!

[ihsanrawi]

Hello. I would love if budgeting be added into the wiki please?. I've been cracking my head on how to incorporate it into full-fledge-hledger locally

[saesh]

Hey @ihsanrawi, I have made a PR to show what method I use to do budgeting. Hope this is helpful to you.