Editing Beancount files
For some of the functionality you won’t even need to modify Beancount files directly. But if you want to get all the benefits and be able to understand what’s going on under the hood it will be useful to go through the following.
Beancount documentation
It will be useful to get an intro and an overview of the format and existing commands in the Beancount User’s Manual.
In particular,
- read through https://beancount.github.io/docs/command_line_accounting_in_context.html (you may already have)
- glance over https://beancount.github.io/docs/the_double_entry_counting_method.html (you don’t need all the details but you can return to parts you’ve missed later)
- https://beancount.github.io/docs/getting_started_with_beancount.html
- and https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_language_syntax.html.
Regarding the latter doc dealing with syntax, keep in mind that you don’t need to remember everything all at once. Each stage of setup in this guide will have its own set of commands you will eventually learn to use. Fava’s documentation on syntax is perfect for a shorter intro. As for other sections from the official documentation, read into them at your leisure.
Note that the official guide (and official Beancount tutorial) recommends starting from a simple single file and improve on it, overall keeping number of files to a minimum. This guide does completely opposite. It starts with an excessive setup you may not use in whole in the beginning but with a lot of features are already available for you. Then you’ll add or edit specific separate files for your data and may eventually adjust the root files as well to your own taste and preference.
I think this approach may shorten the overall time for Beancount starting to be useful for you earlier. You already have all the pieces but may just choose to not pay attention to parts you don’t need or understand yet.
You can also check out an alteranative Accounting for Computer Scientists guide / intro or even a video Beancount tutorial if that’s your thing.
For quick reference the following links may be helpful:
Editing the files
This opinionated guide provides a pre-defined structure for the Beancount config and data files. You can edit any *.bean file in the repository (except *.gen.bean files, you can edit them as well but expect them to be overwritten by other scripts). Some contain setup instructions and options, some contain actual data. The specifics will be described in following sections.
Fava allows to edit any of the included *.bean files using editor right in the web interface. It supports syntax highlighting and auto-completion for your custom-defined accounts and tags. You can also edit transactions directly from the Journal page, and it may be quite convenient when you do it on a subset of transactions (e.g. filtered by tag).
Most of the files you will need for the recommended setup here will be available for edit at Config tab. However, for any batch / complex changes, working with version control, etc, I would recommend to use an external editor.
Editor
I personally use VSCodium / VS Code with the plugin to highlight syntax of the bean files.
Analogous tools exist at least for vim (more info) and Sublime Text, and more.
It’s recommended to acquire some fluency with editing text in the editor as batch-editing multiple lines in text will speed up your setup and doing any changes later. In case of VS Code or Sublime that means using things like multi-cursor and Ctrl/CMD + D shortcut.