Usage of payee and narration
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mpl...@gmail.com
Apr 27, 2018, 1:53:00 PM4/27/18
to Beancount
Guys, could clarify what are the best practices for usage of payee and narration?
Till now i was using only one " " filed, example:
2018-04-01 * "SIMPLEMOBILE*SERVICES"
Liabilities:Business:InkBCash -122.60 USD
Expenses:Business:Phone
2018-04-02 * "AMAZON MKTPLACE PMTS"
Liabilities:Personal:Amex -9.56 USD
Expenses:Personal:Books
which as i understand is interpreted as narration, is it right? Or should i included second empty " " to make it interpreted as payee?
Till now i was using only one " " filed, example:
2018-04-01 * "SIMPLEMOBILE*SERVICES"
Liabilities:Business:InkBCash -122.60 USD
Expenses:Business:Phone
2018-04-02 * "AMAZON MKTPLACE PMTS"
Liabilities:Personal:Amex -9.56 USD
Expenses:Personal:Books
which as i understand is interpreted as narration, is it right? Or should i included second empty " " to make it interpreted as payee?
Martin Blais
Apr 27, 2018, 8:27:07 PM4/27/18
to Beancount
Yes.
Note: I'm not a big fan of the syntax I created here, that the positional bait-and-switch of having the first field mean something different depending on the number of fields, but the reason for this is that narration is a more common field, so it makes the syntax more terse.
Note that you could create a plugin that changes this meaning... e.g. process all the transactions and if the payee is set to None, move the narration into it. Would be pretty easy...
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mpl...@gmail.com
Apr 28, 2018, 7:43:26 PM4/28/18
to Beancount
Martin, could you explain a little bit on the logic on making decision on keeping record as "narration" vs "payee" "" ?
What are the advantages / disadvantages. Let say for example if i put all my records as narrations, what is the situation in which i might see the disadvantages to this strategy?
Sorry for this detailed questions, i am just trying to understand. Beancount have 2 description fields VS 1 in ledger, so there should be the reason why you added additional field.
What are the advantages / disadvantages. Let say for example if i put all my records as narrations, what is the situation in which i might see the disadvantages to this strategy?
Sorry for this detailed questions, i am just trying to understand. Beancount have 2 description fields VS 1 in ledger, so there should be the reason why you added additional field.
On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 8:27:07 PM UTC-4, Martin Blais wrote:
On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 1:53 PM, <mpl...@gmail.com> wrote:Guys, could clarify what are the best practices for usage of payee and narration?
Till now i was using only one " " filed, example:
2018-04-01 * "SIMPLEMOBILE*SERVICES"
Liabilities:Business:InkBCash -122.60 USD
Expenses:Business:Phone
2018-04-02 * "AMAZON MKTPLACE PMTS"
Liabilities:Personal:Amex -9.56 USD
Expenses:Personal:Books
which as i understand is interpreted as narration, is it right? Or should i included second empty " " to make it interpreted as payee?Yes.Note: I'm not a big fan of the syntax I created here, that the positional bait-and-switch of having the first field mean something different depending on the number of fields, but the reason for this is that narration is a more common field, so it makes the syntax more terse.Note that you could create a plugin that changes this meaning... e.g. process all the transactions and if the payee is set to None, move the narration into it. Would be pretty easy...
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Martin Blais
Apr 28, 2018, 11:10:16 PM4/28/18
to Beancount
On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 7:43 PM, <mpl...@gmail.com> wrote:
Martin, could you explain a little bit on the logic on making decision on keeping record as "narration" vs "payee" "" ?
It's not like that, it's either
YYYY-MM-DD * "narration"
or
YYYY-MM-DD * "payee" "narration"
So the first positional string means either "narration" or "payee", this is what I don't like.
Maybe I should have made it like this:
YYYY-MM-DD * "narration" "payee"
with the "payee" optional.
It's too late now.
What are the advantages / disadvantages. Let say for example if i put all my records as narrations, what is the situation in which i might see the disadvantages to this strategy?
They're just two fields, with implied semantics for their usage.
Sorry for this detailed questions, i am just trying to understand. Beancount have 2 description fields VS 1 in ledger, so there should be the reason why you added additional field.
Hmm, I thought Ledger also has payee vs. narration.
The difference is that Ledger's syntax parser doesn't require quotes.
(I defined it like that when I rewrote the parser because it made it easier writing a parser generator from a grammar with various data types on a single line, less ambiguity.)
On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 8:27:07 PM UTC-4, Martin Blais wrote:On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 1:53 PM, <mpl...@gmail.com> wrote:Guys, could clarify what are the best practices for usage of payee and narration?
Till now i was using only one " " filed, example:
2018-04-01 * "SIMPLEMOBILE*SERVICES"
Liabilities:Business:InkBCash -122.60 USD
Expenses:Business:Phone
2018-04-02 * "AMAZON MKTPLACE PMTS"
Liabilities:Personal:Amex -9.56 USD
Expenses:Personal:Books
which as i understand is interpreted as narration, is it right? Or should i included second empty " " to make it interpreted as payee?Yes.Note: I'm not a big fan of the syntax I created here, that the positional bait-and-switch of having the first field mean something different depending on the number of fields, but the reason for this is that narration is a more common field, so it makes the syntax more terse.Note that you could create a plugin that changes this meaning... e.g. process all the transactions and if the payee is set to None, move the narration into it. Would be pretty easy...--
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Martin Michlmayr
Apr 29, 2018, 3:41:08 AM4/29/18
to bean...@googlegroups.com
* mpl...@gmail.com <mpl...@gmail.com> [2018-04-28 16:43]:
beancount has the distinction of payee and narration.
Payee is who I'm dealing with. Narration is a description of what the
transaction is about. Some people don't use a description but I think
it's important because it allows you to remember what the transaction
was about.
Sure, for your SimpleMobile payment it's pretty simple. You know it's
always going to be a "monthly phone plan" or something like that.
But what does "Amazon Marketplace" mean? Was it a purchase of food?
Was it the bike you bought? The gloves? What does "Amazon
Marketplace" really tell you apart from who the vendor is (in fact,
with Amazon Marketplace you don't even record who the actual vendor
is, just that you bought it via Amazon)? That's where the narration
comes in. Now you can say this is what account names are for, but if
you use Expenses:Clothes you may still want to know which purchase was
the t-shirt you like so much vs the gloves vs the socks, etc.
The payee is useful because it lets you group things and search for
them. e.g. "Show me all purchases from Amazon Marketplace."
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
> Martin, could you explain a little bit on the logic on making
> decision on keeping record as "narration" vs "payee" "" ?
>
> What are the advantages / disadvantages. Let say for example if i
> put all my records as narrations, what is the situation in which i
> might see the disadvantages to this strategy?
>
> Sorry for this detailed questions, i am just trying to understand.
> Beancount have 2 description fields VS 1 in ledger, so there should
> be the reason why you added additional field.
I'm not Martin Blais, but coming from ledger I'm really glad that
> decision on keeping record as "narration" vs "payee" "" ?
>
> What are the advantages / disadvantages. Let say for example if i
> put all my records as narrations, what is the situation in which i
> might see the disadvantages to this strategy?
>
> Sorry for this detailed questions, i am just trying to understand.
> Beancount have 2 description fields VS 1 in ledger, so there should
> be the reason why you added additional field.
beancount has the distinction of payee and narration.
Payee is who I'm dealing with. Narration is a description of what the
transaction is about. Some people don't use a description but I think
it's important because it allows you to remember what the transaction
was about.
Sure, for your SimpleMobile payment it's pretty simple. You know it's
always going to be a "monthly phone plan" or something like that.
But what does "Amazon Marketplace" mean? Was it a purchase of food?
Was it the bike you bought? The gloves? What does "Amazon
Marketplace" really tell you apart from who the vendor is (in fact,
with Amazon Marketplace you don't even record who the actual vendor
is, just that you bought it via Amazon)? That's where the narration
comes in. Now you can say this is what account names are for, but if
you use Expenses:Clothes you may still want to know which purchase was
the t-shirt you like so much vs the gloves vs the socks, etc.
The payee is useful because it lets you group things and search for
them. e.g. "Show me all purchases from Amazon Marketplace."
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
mpl...@gmail.com
Apr 29, 2018, 5:59:13 PM4/29/18
to Beancount
Thank you Martin! Very helpful description and usage example!
Martin Blais
Apr 29, 2018, 6:30:24 PM4/29/18
to Beancount
Actually it would be interesting when extracting entries for importing to combine credit card entries with Amazon's Order History Report (a download of your past orders), or even to make a script that will separately incorporate information from the Amazon Order History Report in an existing Beancount file. I always manually try to identify each extract entry with a description from my Amazon page, but I do this manually, and it's annoying.
The payee is useful because it lets you group things and search for
them. e.g. "Show me all purchases from Amazon Marketplace."
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
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