Not all of us have CPA's or have 99% of our life to spend on balancing our checkbook. If you want an easy, straight-to-the-point method to balancing your budget, check out the Command-line Accountant! It handles multiple users (on UNIX-based systems), multiple accounts per user, IOU's, and more. For simplicity, it does not use check numbers. Its interface works purely on command-line arguments-- there is no interactivity whatsoever. The good news is that this makes clacct completely scriptable!
The new version 0.2 is available with a flexible rule-processor 'clarule.' See below for details.
Download it here. Hosted bySHELL>clacct -n checking #creates a new account called 'checking' SHELL>clacct -a checking -amount +1000 -note 'starting balance' SHELL>clacct -a checking -amount -715 -note 'rent payment' SHELL>clacct -l -acc checking #list the transactions on the account named 'checking' 1. Dec 10, 2003 (10:03) +1000 1000 starting balance 2. Dec 10, 2003 (10:03) -715 285 rent payment SHELL>clacct -n mastercard SHELL>clacct -a mastercard -amount -35000 -note 'starting balance' SHELL>clacct -l #list all accounts checking mastercard SHELL>clacct -v -l #verbosely list all accounts checking ($285) mastercard ($-35000) SHELL>clacct -iou 700 -note "Darl McBride" #add an I.O.U SHELL>clacct -liou #list all I.O.U's 1. 700 Darl McBride SHELL>clacct -pay 1 SHELL>clacct -liou #nothing happens SHELL>clacct -v -liou #verbosely list all I.O.U's 1. 700 Darl McBride (paid on 12/10/03) Total Owed: $0 SHELL> #move money from one account to another SHELL>clacct -mv 100 -from checking -to mastercard -note 'mc payment' SHELL>clacct -l -acc mastercard 1. Dec 10, 2003 (10:07) -35000 -35000 starting balance 2. Dec 10, 2003 (10:08) 100 -34900 mc payment SHELL>clacct -rec checking -amount 149 #reconcile your account SHELL>clacct -l -acc checking 1. Dec 10, 2003 (10:03) +1000 1000 starting balance 2. Dec 10, 2003 (10:03) -715 285 rent payment 3. Dec 10, 2003 (10:08) -100 185 mc payment 3. Dec 10, 2003 (10:09) -36 149 Account reconciliation
Rule "[name]":
[pay|receive] [amount|'variable amount']
every ['day'|'week'|'month'] [on [mday|wkday]] [and on...]
every [n] ['days'|'weeks'|'months'] [on [mday|wkday]]
from [accountName]
to [accountName]
starting [date]
ending [date]
ending when balance of [accountName] is [amount];
Rule "paycheck":
receive $70 to checking
every 2 weeks
on friday
starting 1/1/2004;
Rule "Alimony check":
pay $100
every month
on 1
and on 15
from checking
to alimonyfund
starting 1/1/2004
ending 1/1/2057;
Rule "mortgage":
pay 543.21
from checking
to mortgage
every month
on 1
starting 1/2/2004
ending when balance of mortgage is 75000;
From the shell, then, just type:
SHELL>clarule Applied Rule mortgage for 1 Feb 2004 Applied Rule mortgage for 1 Mar 2004 Applied Rule Alimony check for 1 Jan 2004 Applied Rule Alimony check for 15 Jan 2004 ...Then, going back to clacct, type (at the shell prompt)clacct -l -acc checking to see the changes made on the checking account.