17:20 Expenses are debited and not credited in this example, debiting means increasing for expenses and assets. While debits in reversed balance accounts like income, liabilities and equity are decreasing the value.
@@JanuszSp You are correct. Another recording of the same talk has the same error because that was the practice run for this talk. I had them reversed in my notes!
Thanks for sharing this. I'd like to migrate to ledger from gnucash, but the graphical reports in gnucash are a huge plus for me. Do you use any sort of ledger plugin to generate something along the lines of a 'net worth over time' line graph?
Address Unknown yes. There is a ancillary software in the ecosystem called "fava" that is a web interface for "beancount". There are some scripts that can convert a ledger-formatted transaction record to a beancount transaction record. The formats differ very minorly. Once converted, you can use fava, which generates a nice web interface that also includes net worth. On Plaintextaccounting.org, I believe that there is a link to a tutorial on using ledger to output a line graph using a script in the contrib directory of the ledger distributable archive. This script uses gnuplot. Unfortunately, the output is not very attractive.
@@rhettigangerman according to german laws every kind of accounting - no matter what kind of tool you use - has to ensure, that your transactions are not editable without documentation. For example: if you use paper, you must not delete transactions, but you can do a reversal transaction. When your books are not complete, for example, a page is missing, you do not fulfill legal requirements. If you use a software, like ldeger-cli or beancount, it would be easy to change the data afterwards. Thats why german authorities would not accept this.
@@mhl1740 thank you for the explanation. That's interesting. I wonder if they would permit if it were in a version control system such as git. There are ways to edit historical versions in git but they are challenging even for daily git users. A centralized git hosting platform like GitHub or GitLab would be able to reject editing history. However, this still might not meet the test. One would be able to delete past transactions but at least there would be evidence of it.
@@rhettigan using a versioning tool may only be accepted, when the following conditions are fulfilled: an automatic commit after *every single* transaction ("atomic"); you have to ensure, that your repository is protected against intentional or accidental deletion or modification. Additionally you would need a contract with your provider who hosts your repository. This contract has to fulfill some requirements, for example SLA's. Believe me: this would be to much work and "legal Sh*t" for your business.
Just got into plain text accounting and this video was super helpful! Thanks Colin :)
That was a really nice overview and helped me a lot. Thank you! Now I am balanced.
Glad it was helpful!
Very helpful introduction. Greatly appreciated! Thank you very much!
Great intro to Ledger and PTA !
From Chile, Simple The Best Video i've ever since for accounting. Thanks for this presentation.
17:20 Expenses are debited and not credited in this example, debiting means increasing for expenses and assets. While debits in reversed balance accounts like income, liabilities and equity are decreasing the value.
@@JanuszSp You are correct. Another recording of the same talk has the same error because that was the practice run for this talk. I had them reversed in my notes!
good introduction!
Thanks for sharing this. I'd like to migrate to ledger from gnucash, but the graphical reports in gnucash are a huge plus for me. Do you use any sort of ledger plugin to generate something along the lines of a 'net worth over time' line graph?
Address Unknown yes. There is a ancillary software in the ecosystem called "fava" that is a web interface for "beancount". There are some scripts that can convert a ledger-formatted transaction record to a beancount transaction record. The formats differ very minorly. Once converted, you can use fava, which generates a nice web interface that also includes net worth.
On Plaintextaccounting.org, I believe that there is a link to a tutorial on using ledger to output a line graph using a script in the contrib directory of the ledger distributable archive. This script uses gnuplot. Unfortunately, the output is not very attractive.
Correction: Positive number = debit; Negative amount = credit
Not really, it's all positive. Debits/Credits increase or decrease based on the type of account as well
@@adammontgomery7980 yes, really. If they were all positive, then transactions wouldn't total to zero that it balances.
Agreed.
nice idea, but this tool would not even meet the basic requirements of german law (for business use)
Can you explain? German viewers would benefit from understanding why.
@@rhettigangerman according to german laws every kind of accounting - no matter what kind of tool you use - has to ensure, that your transactions are not editable without documentation. For example: if you use paper, you must not delete transactions, but you can do a reversal transaction. When your books are not complete, for example, a page is missing, you do not fulfill legal requirements. If you use a software, like ldeger-cli or beancount, it would be easy to change the data afterwards. Thats why german authorities would not accept this.
@@mhl1740 thank you for the explanation. That's interesting. I wonder if they would permit if it were in a version control system such as git. There are ways to edit historical versions in git but they are challenging even for daily git users. A centralized git hosting platform like GitHub or GitLab would be able to reject editing history. However, this still might not meet the test. One would be able to delete past transactions but at least there would be evidence of it.
@@rhettigan using a versioning tool may only be accepted, when the following conditions are fulfilled: an automatic commit after *every single* transaction ("atomic"); you have to ensure, that your repository is protected against intentional or accidental deletion or modification. Additionally you would need a contract with your provider who hosts your repository. This contract has to fulfill some requirements, for example SLA's. Believe me: this would be to much work and "legal Sh*t" for your business.
@@mhl1740 thank you for the insight!