Directory structure

NB: If you are just starting with hledger, this section would definitely overwhelm you. Skip it entirely - everything contained here will be introduced in subsequent sections.

However, if you are experienced and impatient hledger user who does not want to read through the whole wiki or just want a refresher of what goes where, then this section might be for you.

TL;DR - what goes where

• All files reside in a single directory with two subdirectories: one for the source files from financial institutions (./import), and one for generated summaries and reports (./export).

• At the top level there is all.journal which is the main entry point for all of your financial history. It contains just a bunch of !include lines

• Next to it are a bunch of {year}.journal files that will have:

  1. !include of the opening balances file carrying over your assets/liabilities from previous year;
  2. a bunch of !includes for all the converted CSV files;
  3. all manual transactions that you have for that year

• Raw CSV files go into ./import/{source}/in

• Converted CSV files go into ./import/{source}/journal

• Run ./export.sh after each change, check the changes to the reports generated in ./export, commit everything religiously.

• When you run hledger manually, point it to all.journal most of the time.

• It is ok to stop reading here and head on to Getting started and read the rest of the section later.

But why...?

Why is all.journal structured the way it is?

Why per-year files at all?

Do they have to start on January?

What do I do to start a new year?

How do I start from scratch?

What if my current setup is completely different - how do I convert?

I love single wiki page that contains all the answers as much as the next man. Unfortunately, my attempts to write a single page that fully describes my setup had failed miserably, and the best I can offer you is to head to Getting started and read the rest of the wiki - it is not too large, and hopefully you would be able to skip over large sections that explain things you already know.