Beancount documentation
This guide is not designed to contain all information about Beancount ever. It only introcudes some basic concepts or clarifies how some of them are interpreted and used for the purpose of this guide. Also it focuses on the parts omitted, interaction with ecosystem’s plugins and libraries, recommendations. Hence, the original documentation is still a great and necessary source of information. You don’t need to go through the whole of it to be able to use the software but the section below recommends the sections it’d be useful to scroll through.
Documentation overview
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 a whole lot in the beginning, but with a lot of features that are potentially available for you. You will add or edit specific separate files for your data and may also adjust the top-level config files as well to your own taste and preferences when you’re comfortable to do so.
I think this approach may shorten the overall time for Beancount starting to be useful for you earlier. You already have all the pieces of the system 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.
Quick reference
For quick reference the following links may be helpful: