single or multiple files per year

[Saša Janiška]

More than one year ago I wanted to migrate from Gnucash to
(h)ledger/beancount, but simply didn’t have enough time to tailor my
ledger file.

In the meantime I moved most of my setup to Emacs&related stuff and now
I’m determined to finally migrate…

Beancount seems as the best option having some nice features along with
nice web interface (Fava), so I’m interesting about some tips how to
organize my beancount file which I got by running ledger2beancount.py
script on the ledger file created by gnucash2ledger.py script?

The “Getting Started” document says: “I recommend that you begin with
just a single file.” with the following explanation in the footnote: “
It is tempting to want to break down a large file into many smaller
ones, but especially at first, the convenience of having everything in a
single place is great.” so I wonder in a case when I’m notstarting from
the scratch?

Stats for converted *.ledger file is:

Unique payees: 3516
Unique accounts: 166

Number of postings: 13637 (6.3 per day)

and Time period: 10-Oct-31 to 16-Oct-05 (2166 days)


Sincerely,
Gour

--
He who is regulated in his habits of eating, sleeping, recreation
and work can mitigate all material pains by practicing the yoga system.

[Martin Blais]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Saša Janiška <go...@atmarama.com> wrote:

More than one year ago I wanted to migrate from Gnucash to
(h)ledger/beancount, but simply didn’t have enough time to tailor my
ledger file.

In the meantime I moved most of my setup to Emacs&related stuff and now
I’m determined to finally migrate…

Beancount seems as the best option having some nice features along with
nice web interface (Fava), so I’m interesting about some tips how to
organize my beancount file which I got by running ledger2beancount.py
script on the ledger file created by gnucash2ledger.py script?

The “Getting Started” document says: “I recommend that you begin with
just a single file.” with the following explanation in the footnote: “
It is tempting to want to break down a large file into many smaller
ones, but especially at first, the convenience of having everything in a
single place is great.” so I wonder in a case when I’m notstarting from
the scratch?

Stats for converted *.ledger file is:

Unique payees:            3516
Unique accounts:           166

Number of postings:      13637 (6.3 per day)

and Time period: 10-Oct-31 to 16-Oct-05 (2166 days)

I think it depends on how well you're able to navigate a very large file. I'm still using a single large file, and I navigate it easily via org-mode (I recommend it). Org-mode allows you define and fold/unfold sections of your file, so it's easy to go to any section. I organize transactions more or less per real-world physical account.

Another reason to stick with a single file is that it makes it easy to grep around your entire history and to make big changes to the account hierarchy. Although it has stabilized by now, there's still the occasional decision to refine and improve my account hierarchy. It's one of the powers and beauty of using text files for your accounting.

For comparison, I have 11226 transactions, 20663 directives (including transactions), 733 accounts, 2349 unique payees, spanning about 10 years.

If you decide to split it in multiple files, put all your options in the root, top-level file, because they don't get honored in the included files. Other than that it should work.

HTH,

[Saša Janiška]

Martin Blais <bl...@furius.ca> writes:

> I think it depends on how well you're able to navigate a very large
> file. I'm still using a single large file, and I navigate it easily
> via org-mode (I recommend it). Org-mode allows you define and fold/
> unfold sections of your file, so it's easy to go to any section. I
> organize transactions more or less per real-world physical account.

My concern for splitting into smaller files was mostly due to potential
performance issues, but if that’s excluded I’ll keep in into single
file…yes, I’m also org-mode user.

> HTH,

Yes, thank you!


Sincerely,
Gour

--
The intricacies of action are very hard to understand.
Therefore one should know properly what action is,
what forbidden action is, and what inaction is.